Through Time and Space
by Cheshire Athene
Summary: Set during The Impossible Astronaut and on. The Doctor gathers those he trusts most: River, Amy and Rory and dimensions are crossed as Rose Tyler is summoned as well with Captain Jack Harckness following along for the ride. Series 6 rewrite/Reunion fic! 11/Rose
1. Chapter 1

An envelope is such an extraordinary thing. In the beginning of its short or long life, it is hardly given a second thought as it is hastily handled, being stuffed with whatever important or not so important message. However, as soon as it sealed it becomes a powerful object of possibility to whomever is on the receiving end. Within its walls can emerge bursts of friendship and joy or it can bear forth sorrows to bring the strongest to their knees. The caress of love can radiate from it. Whispers of secrets can be heard at times as it rustles in the exchange of hands. And before its seal is torn open by the recipient it has the ability to be all of that and more. So when a mysterious blue envelope popped into existence in the most impossible of places through a brilliant burst of golden light, one can imagine the surprise and shock that it brought to a young lady who was just trying to get through the day.

This particular young lady had just started work not a month earlier and this was her first shift completely on her own in the laboratory. The rest of the team were out in the field somewhere chasing the latest alien happening and she was left behind to do some of the more tedious tasks. A moment before the offending envelope so rudely appeared and started a chain reaction that would effectively alter all of time, 26 year old Lizzie Trembley was staring blankly at the computer screen in front of her. Her chin rested in her left hand as her right mechanically guided the mouse. Her face was framed by loose strands of dark hair that had somehow rebelled from the elastic that held the rest of her shoulder length hair in place. She was tasked with inputting research into the computer that had been compiled earlier. A boring task for even the most easily entertained. Her eyes had been keeping a steady eye on the clock as it slowly marched its way through time. She was still two hours away from the end and completely numb with boredom. It was the above mentioned flash of light that had pulled her from her stupor. Slowly she tilted her head around the monitor to look at what had just happened. It took a minute for her eyes to find the change in the room and pick out the blue envelope that now occupied the lab floor. It was after another solid minute of just staring at it with an open mouth before Lizzie's brain clicked into action and registered that she should do something.

"Okay, I know what to do…I know what to do…what the hell am I supposed to do?" she muttered desperately to herself. She walked slowly around her desk to the center of the laboratory where the blue envelope laid innocently on the floor. The air surrounding the envelope smelled like burnt atmosphere and the hairs on her body stood up, tingling with some unseen energy. As she drew closer she noticed that it was addressed to someone in a loopy script. She crouched down so that she could read the name. Her eyes widened as she read the name on. Her hand fumbled in her trouser pockets as she tried to pull her mobile out. Eventually she was able to tug it out and shakily scroll through her contacts before punching the green call button. She started to pace back and forth as the phone rang against her ear.

"Why are you never available when you're needed most? It's Lizzie and I have a situation here, please hurry back when you get this!" The lid of the mobile snapped shut as she pocketed it again. Her fingers found their way to her lips as she started to chew on her nails while she nervously continued pacing back and forth in the lab trying to figure out what to do next. Anyone who would know what to do next were gone on assignment.

"Get a grip Lizzie! This was bound to happen someday," she sternly scolded herself as she madly searched her brain over what the protocol was for this type of situation. "I was just hoping it wouldn't happen so soon," she mumbled as her mind came up blank. When she first started working for Torchwood, she knew that the strange and unexplainable was going to be a part of the job description. She would get thrilled just thinking about the possibilities of what she might discover while working for the organization. However, up until this moment it had always been more of an idea than reality. This was to be her first encounter among the wondrous impossibilities that seemed to be synonymous with the word Torchwood. She just had hoped that when it did finally happen, she wouldn't be alone.

"Think…think…think!" Her eyes frantically scanned her surroundings, taking in all the lab equipment. A silent ping went off inside her head as her gaze landed on the scanning equipment. Taking a breath she turned on the scanner and walked over to the envelope while she babbled to herself.

"It's just an envelope – nothing to be frightened over. Simply an envelope that appeared out of thin air." Crouching down with the scanning wand in hand, she waved it through the air inches above the envelope. Looking at the readout on the screen she forgot about how nervous she was and her eyes changed to confusion. "That's not possible."

* * *

"Look, I checked it out myself. Lizzie did not misinterpret the scan, that envelope is not from this universe."

A severe looking middle aged man was sitting across from a woman who in appearance could not be older than 24. The man was still dressed in the same clothing he wore when he received Lizzie's voicemail. When he called her back to find out what was going on, he immediately recalled the team and they hurried back, leaving no time to clean up. As soon as he made it back to Torchwood, he double checked Lizzie's findings before leaving his team to do some more testing and made his way to the Director's office. That was three hours ago. The legs of his trousers were caked in dried mud and his shirt was smattered with what could only be described as an array of dried alien sludge. His receding, peppered brown hair was cropped close to his head in general military fashion. He had a stern brow and a proud nose and if he was annoyed at having a superior who appeared to be half his age, he did not show it. The woman watched the man with some amusement, her clasped hands resting on the desk she was seated behind.

"It is not possible for an object from another universe to be here. All the cracks have been sealed and you know that, Tom," the Director stated with a thick cockney accent.

"You're right," he said exasperated. "However, I know what the readout said and no matter how impossible it seems that envelope has travelled across not only space and perhaps time, but also dimensions."

Tom knew it was going to be hard to convince Rose Tyler that this envelope was not of this universe. After all, it was common knowledge amongst Torchwood of how long and thorough she was in her search for such a crack that would lead her to another universe. He closely watched the woman as she herself was trying to figure out how to drive home the point of how impossible it all was. Her blonde hair fell below her shoulders in unruly curls framing her face. She wore less makeup than most women in their twenties, bringing forth the natural beauty of her features. She had thick dark eyebrows which gave her the appearance of having wolf eyes. She may have had the facade of a 24 year old woman but Tom knew better. The answer of her true age lay within her honey brown eyes. They were old eyes, deep with experiences and wisdom only gained with time. As well, Tom started at Torchwood twenty years ago and while time cruelly prodded and pulled at his body, she seemed to glide through with ease her body untouched and never aging.

Before Rose could disagree with Tom's statement and point out that the scanner might be malfunctioning, there was knock on her office door before it was swiftly opened by one of her assistants. "Here is the report they collected, Ms Tyler. As well, they sent you the recording to your tablet." The young man handed her the manila folder that contained all the data from every test that had since been ran on the envelope and what their ultimate conclusion was on its possible threat level. After all since the letter was addressed directly to Rose Tyler, their fearless director, they weren't going to take any chances – no matter how silly it is to think that a piece of post could be life threatening.

Rose grabbed her tablet and opened the video file that was sent to her. Tom stood up and rounded her desk to watch the recording over her shoulder. A black and white image filled the tablet screen, giving Rose and Tom the bird's eye view of the room. Rose watched with great interest as the silent scene unfolded before their eyes. Lizzie sitting behind the computer and in a brilliant flash of light an envelope appears in the center of the floor. She stopped the recording when Lizzie stood up to walk towards the envelope.

"Okay, let's just say for one moment I believe that this envelope had come from some other…place." She refused to say universe, because she was still extremely skeptical at best about the idea that this small piece of post had managed to do something she so desperately wanted to do for many years. "I'm dead in the only other," again she hesitated, "place that knows of my existence. Who would want to contact me or even know how to do it?"

Even as the question left her lips, she already knew the answer to her question. There was a deep confirmation in the gut of her stomach that desperately tried to give rise to excitement. She refused to acknowledge it though and discarded it as impossible. She knew the only person who had the capability to even gain the knowledge to send the envelope and address it to her thought she had already lived and died the life he wanted her to have, leaving a part of himself with her to grow old with.

She quickly flipped open the manila folder to scan the findings all of the diligent testing done by her team produced. However, before her eyes could glide over the data, they landed on the photo of the blue envelope with her name written across its face. It wasn't any color of blue. Her heart skipped a beat as recognition dawned in her eyes. No matter how long it had been, she would know that shade of blue. It was _TARDIS _blue! She abruptly stood up and half ran out of the room with Tom grabbing the folder and quickly following behind.

* * *

"Who do you think sent it?" Lizzie wondered out loud as the Torchwood team of agents stood looking at the envelope waiting for further instructions on how to proceed.

"Only one way to find out!" Before anyone could even move to stop her, Rose strode confidently into the lab and over to the envelope and crouched down. She paused as her fingers hovered over the paper. She could feel the energy radiating from the fibers of the paper as if it were alive and waiting for her. A moment of warmth came over her as her skin connected with it. Flipping over the envelope she found a small number 2 inscribed in white.

"What secrets do you hold?" she asked quietly as she stood up. The envelope felt heavy in her hands, weighted down by more than just paper within. Her excitement grew as she ripped open the envelope and slowly pulled the card from the blue encasing. Her fingers started to tremble a little over what possibility could be held within. While she didn't know what she was expecting, what she read before her on the card was definitely not it. Her eyes grew quizzical and she furrowed her brow as she tried to make sense of it. Coordinates and a date were scrawled across the card and nothing else. Her lips dipped into a frown as she flipped the card over. Written on the center of the back was one word.

_Allons-y!_

With each beat of her pounding heart, long dead hope and excitement grew inside her. She slowly turned the blue envelope upside down and emptied the remaining object into her hand. It was a flat, circular disc, slightly smaller than the palm of her hand, somewhat raised in the center. As soon as it touched her skin, it hummed to life with a red light blinking from the middle. Before Rose could even begin to try to comprehend what was happening, a small needle glided out from beneath the disc and pricked her skin. The light turned from red to green as a small robotic voice announced smoothly, "DNA match confirmed."

Rose's eyes widened and small gasp escaped her mouth as she had time to look up and make eye contact with Tom before the same brilliant golden light that birthed the envelope wrapped its tendrils around her, completely engulfing her body and blinking her from existence.

**Author's Note:**I'm so excited for this story! It my first fanfiction, so please be nice! ;) Just so you know, I work full-time as well I'm a full-time student, so my free time is pitifully short right now. I will update when I can, but it may be a week or two or more between chapters. Hang in there with me if you want to join me for the ride!


	2. Chapter 2

**Author's Note: **Thanks so much to those who took time to review the last chapter! I really appreciate it. Thanks for the favorites and follows too! It is all very encouraging. Enjoy the next installment! Allons-y! *Dialogue was lifted from the episode _The Impossible Astronaut_

* * *

Amelia Pond, the Girl Who Waited, was waiting some more. In fact, she had been waiting now for a couple of hours in front of a makeshift bus stop with her stickman of a husband Rory at her side. On top of that waiting, was the waiting she did yesterday when they finally made it into Utah's one and only international airport in Salt Lake City. She waited the seven hours it took for their bus to reach the not so rustic town they currently found themselves in, sitting and waiting. Before that she waited the not so lovely, cramped eighteen hours it took to fly from London to Utah, which included two layovers and the waiting in line to go through customs. That's not to mention the waiting she did previously during the two weeks from when they first received the cryptic blue card with nothing but a date and coordinates to when it was actually time to leave on this new mad adventure. In short, Amy was fed up with waiting. Both she and Rory looked a little worn around the edges from all the traveling they had accomplished in the past few days. Their clothing was wrinkled from being packed in such a small space as a hiking pack. The heat of the Utah desert, while not stifling hot in April, was extremely dry. She could feel the water in her skin being sucked dry and her lips going chap. She was currently sitting slouched over on a curb outside of a gas station with her head resting in the palms of her hands. Her straight, ginger hair blew lazily in the occasional breeze. She was ready to start walking to the coordinates on the map, but that would mean walking a good 80 miles. And so she waited some more until a big yellow school bus blocked the sun casting a shadow over her and her husband.

"Finally," Amy muttered as she uncurled her long body and stood up.

* * *

"Thanks!" Amy hollered as she stepped off the bus shouldering her pack. The anticipation she felt growing during the bus ride over was coming to a head. They had finally arrived. She walked over to Rory as the driver closed the door and started to drive away with a rumble.

"This is it, yeah? The right place?" Amy asked eagerly as she took in her surroundings. She still hadn't gotten used to the vastness that was the American West. They were standing on a dusty country highway somewhere in the middle of The Valley of the Gods or at least that is what she thought it was called according to the map. Red rock formations jutted out of the earth like huge monoliths in the distance. She felt like she walked right into the middle of one of those old country western films. She half expected to see a gang of bank robbers riding madly on their horses in the distance with a giant cloud of dust billowing behind them.

"Nowhere, middle of? Yeah this is it," Rory said still unsure what he was doing in such a remote spot. The whole way there he was trying not to think of what monster they might find when they got to Utah. Apparently they were going to find absolutely nothing.

With Amy's and Rory's backs facing it, the bus pulled fully away to reveal a shiny, red and chrome station wagon. The Doctor lay reclined on the hood of the car dressed in his usual tweed jacket, black suspenders and red bowtie, with his floppy brown hair hidden underneath a big cowboy hat and looking thoroughly relaxed. His eyes twinkled under the brim of the hat. He was absolutely thrilled to see his favorite married couple.

"Howdy!" The Doctor said in his best attempt of a western drawl and he thought he pulled it off quite well, if he were to say so himself.

Amy and Rory whipped around. The Doctor watched them as a grin quickly spread across Amy's face. He always thought surprises were the best and it was a rare opportunity to surprise Amelia Pond in a good way.

"Doctor!" Amy squealed with delight and ran lightly across the road with Rory not far behind.

He leaped off the hood and laughed with glee, "It's the Ponds!"

He bounded over to Amy and swept her up in a tight hug. He glanced over and saw Rory.

"Rory the Roman! Ooo, come here," he yelled as he grabbed Rory and pulled him into a hug.

"Hey, nice hat," Rory said gesturing to the Doctor's head once he had enough space to properly look at the Doctor.

The Doctor looked pleased that Rory commented on it. He was very excited to be wearing one.

"I wear a Stetson now. Stetsons are cool," he said matter-of-factly, putting his thumbs in the waist of his trousers doing his best cowboy impression.

A loud bang brought their happy reunion to a crashing halt causing them all to jump. The Doctor found himself looking at his new favorite Stetson cowboy hat laying on the road with a bullet hole in it. He slowly turned his head to find himself looking at none other than curly haired River Song blowing on the barrel of a revolver.

"Hello, sweetie," she cooed as she holstered her six shooter.

"What's going on, Doctor? Why are we all here?" Amy asked, looking from River to the Doctor, brimming with curiosity and unable to wait any longer.

"Here's not the right place for questions of that nature. Highways are the place for philosophical questions. No, there's a great diner just a little way up the road. Pile in Ponds!" He exclaimed, gesturing to the wagon.

"You know how to drive?" Rory asked, the skepticism prevalent in his voice as he walked over to the back seat car door.

"Of course I know how to drive. Why wouldn't I know how to drive? I'm the Doctor," the Doctor said as if it was a constant, like the sun rising in the east and setting in the west.

* * *

The Doctor slid into a red booth at a very retro American roadside diner excitedly whipping out his TARDIS blue diary. River eagerly mirrored his action from the other side of the booth, her eyes dancing with joy and a smile illuminating her face. While River's appearance would put her somewhere in her late thirties to early forties, it was still difficult to tell her age. She seemed ageless like the Doctor.

"Right then, where are we?" River asked, flipping through the worn pages of her diary. "Have we done Easter Island yet?"

The Doctor quickly turned pages. "Er, yes!" He exclaimed, slapping a finger down on an open page in his diary. "I've got Easter Island." He grinned at her like a little schoolboy.

"They worshipped you there. Have you seen the statues?" River mused, resting her chin on her hand. She loved these moments with the Doctor. Moments when they have both traveled a lot together and could reminisce in their old adventures.

The Doctor was already looking for the next adventure they might have already shared. "Jim the fish."

"Oh! Jim the fish. How is he?"

"Still building his dam," the Doctor said with a laugh. River smiled at the memory.

"Sorry, what are you two doing?" Rory asked, as he and Amy sat down with their colas next to River and the Doctor.

"They're both time travelers, so they never meet in the right order. They're syncing their diaries," Amy explained. She watched them with amusement when a bright yellow piece of paper caught her eye.

"What's this?" Amy asked reaching over the Doctor to grab the flyer that was sitting with the napkin dispenser. "Bad Wolf Music Festival. That looks like fun, eh Rory? Maybe we can go if this mad alien doesn't keep us too busy."

She handed the flyer to her husband. The Doctor's hearts skipped a beat as he heard those infamous two little words, _Bad Wolf._ Today was the day he would see her again, Rose Tyler, Defender of the Earth. It all made sense now, as he thought back on his past two hundred years. Of course it would be today that she would show up and that didn't bring him any pleasure.

"So, what's happening, then? Because you've been up to something." Amy bumped her shoulder against the Doctor's bringing him out of his thoughts. A ghost of a smile crossed his lips. He could feel the weariness of his age and life catching up to him.

"I've been running, faster than I've ever run. And I've been running my whole life. Now, it's time for me to stop. And tonight, I'm going to need you all with me."

"Okay. We're here. What's up?" Amy asked him.

"A picnic. And then a trip. Somewhere different, somewhere brand new."

"Where?" Amy's mind already trying to envision an exotic alien landscape that she had never seen before.

"Space, 1969," he answered cryptically with a grin.

* * *

The world was spinning underneath Rose. She was lying on her back, her hair splayed out beneath her head. Her finger nails raked across a hard surface as she tried to grasp onto anything to keep herself from falling off the face of the Earth. Stars were exploding behind her closed eyes as a pain of such intensity that she had never felt before ravaged her head. It felt as if her mind was a fiery hot inferno with the flames licking the inside of her skull until it would burn up into nothing. She gasped, her head hurt so much. Distantly from outside the pain she could feel hands on her head, grasping it gently. She thought she heard someone calling her name, but the sound was out of focus and slurred together like it was being shouted from far away down a long hall and the echo had distorted any semblance of what the sound might have been. Ever so gradually the fire in her mind cooled down to dull throb somewhere deep within. The ground beneath her prostrate body slowed to stop. As the motion slowed, it seemed the commotion around her sped up. Clarity came to the sound, it was a man calling her name, desperately pleading for a response from her. The hands that were so slow in their gentle touch had become more hurried and frantic as they checked her body for any physical injuries.

She groaned and brought her hand to her forehead. "Not so loud Tom. What happened?"

There came an audible laugh of relief. "I was going to ask you the same."

Rose froze. The reply came from a voice that was definitely not Tom's. She knew that voice. It was a voice from another time and from another world. Her eyes flew open to find the familiar pale eyes of Captain Jack Harkness staring down at her, his face showing both relief and concern.

"Jack?"

"As I live and breathe, it's Rose Tyler." His face broke out into a grin.

Rose slowly sat up, wincing as dull throbbing in her head became more pronounced.

"Easy now," Jack grasped her arms at the elbows and gently helped her up. Rose looked around her surroundings. She was standing in the middle of a square in front of a tall water fountain. She furrowed her brow.

"Wait a second, are we in Cardiff?"

"What? No hello first?" Jack laughed faking that he had hurt feelings.

Rose smiled, "Hello Jack. Still wearing that ratty World War II coat, I see."

"Best piece of clothing I own, makes me look devilishly handsome," Jack grinned as he scooped her into a giant hug.

"So, who's Tom and is he someone I would like?" Jack asked cheekily letting her go.

"Tom's a…he's a" Rose paused as a very important thought struck her mind. "Hang on, if you're here either you did something extremely stupid or it means…" Rose let the sentence hang, not daring to hope that after all these years she had finally achieved the impossible and made it back. Rose moved back a couple of steps and looked up at the sky around her. "No zeppelins."

"How did you do it Rose? How did you get back?" Jack called to her bringing her gaze back to him.

"I don't know. It's all just sort of foggy." She closed her eyes trying to think of the last thing she remembered. There was something blue and it was where it shouldn't be. Her eyes cast around on the ground as she tried to find the card and the device that started all of this. Her hands flew to her trouser pockets and she felt something hard in them. She didn't remember putting them in her pocket.

"I received this letter." She pulled out the card with the date and coordinates. She handed it to Jack. Her mind was starting to catch up with what was happening and it started to think ahead. "What year is it?"

"Uh, 2011. April."

Rose grabbed Jack's arm and pulled back the sleeve of his jacket to reveal a device strapped to his forearm that looked like a keyboard of sorts. "Is that a Vortex Manipulator?"

"Yeah," he said offhandedly still looking at the card. "Do you think this is from the Doctor?"

She was ignoring him though, she still held onto his arm with one had while she used the other to punch in the coordinates on the card she received. Before Jack could react, they vanished in a flash of light without as much as a pop.

* * *

True to his word, the Doctor dragged Amy, Rory, and River to the shore of a brilliant emerald blue lake. With the red sand and the moon hanging big, white and round in the afternoon sky, the landscape looked almost alien. The Doctor went the whole nine yards to do the picnic properly. He had blankets and a wicker basket holding food and wine.

"Salud!" The Doctor raised a bottle of wine to his dear friends. They each raised a glass in return, chorusing in return and clinked their glasses together. "Salud."

Rory cleared his throat, "So, when are we going to 1969?"

"And since when do you drink wine?" Amy asked accusingly to the Doctor.

"I'm eleven hundred and three. I must've drunk it sometime." All it took was one swig for the Doctor to immediately turn his head in disgust and spit it out. He made the face of a three year old who was forced to eat his vegetables. "Oh, why it's horrid. I thought it would taste more like the gums."

Amy choked back her laugh, "Eleven hundred and three? You were nine hundred and eight the last time we saw you."

"And you've put on a couple of pounds. I wasn't going to mention it." The Doctor replied rudely back. Always more of a woman than Amy, the Doctor was. Acting all touchy over his age. Amy grinned at the thought as a movement caught her eye. A shadowy figure appeared on the hill behind the Doctor.

"Who's that?" Amy asked as she stared at the figure in the distance. He looked to be wearing a suit, but it was difficult to tell because he was just a shadow. Amy wasn't sure because of the distance, but his head looked to be too big to be human.

"Hmm? Who's who?" Rory asked Amy.

Amy broke her gaze and looked at Rory to tell him to look for himself, except she forgot what she was looking at or even what she said. "Sorry, what?"

"What did you see? You said you saw something."

Amy gave him a strange look. "No, I didn't."

The Doctor watched the exchange with some concern. He knew what was going on, of course, and he knew that this was only the beginning for what was in store for his beloved Ponds and the rest of his friends. The weight of the thought that their adventure was just beginning and his was about to end started to pull him down. He glanced around for a distraction.

"Ah, the moon. Look at it. Of course, you lot did a lot more than look, didn't you? Big, silvery thing in the sky, you couldn't resist it. Quite right."

"The moon landing was in 69. Is that where we're going?" Rory asked hoping he made the right connection.

"No. A lot more happens in 69 than anyone remembers. Human beings. I thought I'd never get done saving you," the Doctor mused, seemingly to talk more to himself than to his companions.

Amy was going to ask him what he meant, but she was interrupted before she could even form the question by a silver pickup truck pulling to a stop a short distance away. The Doctor stood up and waved reluctantly at a stout, older gentleman wearing a ball cap and a brown jacket who had just climbed out of the truck. Amy got up and stood next to the Doctor.

"Who's he?"

"Oh, my God," River gasped as she stood up as well. She wasn't looking at the truck. She was looking in the opposite direction at the lake. Amy followed her gaze and couldn't believe her eyes as she saw a fully suited NASA astronaut standing, knee deep in water at the edge of the lake. The Doctor looked at the astronaut with heavy hearts. It was finally here, the moment he had been running from for so long. He turned to his companions and said in a low, serious voice, "You all need to stay back. Whatever happens now, you do not interfere. Clear?"

He didn't wait for a response and started to walk towards the astronaut. The stark white suited figure ready for space did the same and left the water to meet the Doctor. Amy, Rory, and River were so concerned with what was happening with the Doctor that they didn't notice the flash of light that preceded the appearance of a man and a woman standing a little way behind them.

"That's an astronaut. That's an Apollo astronaut in a lake." Rory said in disbelief.

"What's he doing?"Amy squinted her eyes. It looked like the Doctor was talking with the astronaut. He bowed his head. The astronaut slowly raised an arm and there was a pause before a crack of sound echoed around the lake and a blast of light coming from the astronaut's hand hit the Doctor in the chest, the force of which caused the Doctor to stumble backwards.

"Doctor!" Amy screamed as she ran forward to be with him. She couldn't believe what she was seeing. It all felt so surreal. The Doctor had just been shot by an astronaut. She was vaguely aware that she wasn't the only voice to call out to the Doctor, somewhere behind her. She didn't have time to think about whom that could be. Her Doctor was in trouble.

"Amy, stay back!" River shouted as she and Rory lunged and grabbed Amy's arms, holding on tightly, stopping her from going any further. They heard another loud bang and the Doctor stumbled back and fell onto his knees.

"The Doctor said stay back! You have to stay back!" River shouted again as Amy struggled in their grip.

"No! No! Doctor!" Amy screamed desperately. She watched as his hands were starting to glow.

The Doctor turned his head and looked at his friends before his gaze landed on someone behind them. Amy saw his lips move in a whispered apology. She looked ever her shoulder to see who he was talking to. It was a blonde woman she had never seen before. The woman looked to Amy to be a little older than herself. The woman's hand was hovering over her open mouth in disbelief and horror. She looked exactly how Amy felt on the inside. There was also a man at the woman's side, holding her back. Amy turned back to the Doctor, concern for him overriding her curiosity as to who that man and woman were. He grimaced before standing straight up, his back arched and his arms outstretched. Gold light exploded from his hands and his face. Amy's heart was pounding in her chest, not knowing what was going on. It looked like his body was burning from within. There was another final ringing blast from the gun hidden in the astronaut's arm, hitting the Doctor in his chest. He was flung onto his back, the golden light disappearing.

"No! Doctor!" River cried releasing Amy from her grip.

"Doctor, please!" Amy started to run as fast as she could in the sand to reach the Doctor. River slid to her knees beside Amy and pulled out a device and started to scan him for any signs of life. It came back negative. River stood up with a grim look on her face, tears in her eyes as she pulled her revolver from its holster and started to shoot at the receding astronaut until she emptied the chamber of bullets.

"Of course not," she said bitterly as the astronaut continued its retreat into the lake unscathed. The man Amy saw earlier whipped past River as he was pulling off his jacket and shoes.

"Jack, don't!" River called after him as he dove into the lake.

The blonde woman fell to her knees on the other side of the Doctor, across from Amy. Amy didn't know who this woman was, but it was clear that she knew the Doctor and she felt his death just as acutely as Amy did. It hit Amy then about how little she really knew about her Raggedy Man. Here were two people from the Doctor's life that he had never mentioned, he never really mentioned any one from his past now that she was really thinking about it. The Doctor had a gift of making you feel like you were the most important person in his life and that there was no one before you. But that wasn't exactly true, there were people before her, but there wasn't going to be any after now. The Doctor was dead. No matter how special he made you feel, he was gone now.

"You can't be dead. I came all this way. Come on you idiot, regenerate!" the woman pleaded softly as she grasped the Doctor's hand and held it up to her cheek.

Amy glanced up as she heard the splashing of water of someone coming up to the beach. Adrenaline was coursing through her body as she was ready to pounce on that bloody astronaut if it dared resurface. However, her eyes only found the man, Jack as River called him, trudging out of the water, a now transparent white shirt clinging to his chest and his black trousers dripping wet. He was heaving deeply, anger and disappointment scrawled across his face as he shook his head bitterly and bent over and grabbed his coat and shoes.

"It got away, I couldn't find it."

"Whatever that was, it killed him in the middle of his regeneration cycle. His body was already dead. He didn't make it to the next one." River said gently.

The blonde woman shook her head and sobbed. "No, he had to have known. He had to have had some plan. He can't die."

"Rose, I'm sorry. He's dead." Jack said emotion cracking through his voice as he bent down and pulled her away from the Doctor's body. Rose's teary whispered denials were smothered as she buried her face in Jack's shoulder. Jack himself was blinking rapidly trying desperately to hold back tears of his own as he held tightly on to Rose.

"Maybe he's a clone or a duplicate or something," Amy said quietly, clinging to Rose's previous statement with a little thread of hope.

A gravelly voice only gained from years of smoking broke through the sorrow.

"I believe I can save you some time. That most certainly is the Doctor. And he is most certainly dead. He said you'd need this." It was the old man from the silver pickup that the Doctor waved to earlier. He was holding up a bright red plastic container.

"Gasoline?" Rory asked confused.

"A Time Lord's body is a miracle. Even a dead one. There are whole empires out there who'd rip this world apart for just one cell. We can't leave him here. Or anywhere." River replied.

"Wake up. Come on, wake up, you stupid, bloody idiot. What do we do, Rory?" Amy pleaded as she grasped the Doctor's body.

"We're his friends. We do what the Doctor's friends always do. As we're told," River said with grim determination.

"There's a boat. If we're going to do this, let's do it properly," Rory said pointing to a little beached boat a little ways down the shore.

Rose watched as Rory and Jack placed the Doctor's body in the boat preparing him for his fiery grave. The wrongness of the situation was still permeating through her body. She never thought the Doctor capable of dying. When they were done with the preparations, one by one they said their final goodbyes. Rose made her way over to him. Her fingers traced the contours of his face as she fully took in the new regeneration. She was glad that she wasn't looking at her doctor's face with his great, spiky head of hair, otherwise it would have been impossible for her to be standing there holding it together. If she thought about it hard enough she could almost make it seem like she was looking at a stranger. _Almost._ No matter the face, he was still the same man and she would always see him as her doctor. Rose leaned over the Doctor's body silent tears falling freely down her cheeks. "I love you." She bent over and with a whisper of his name placed a final kiss on his cheek.

They cast the boat in reverence and set it alight with fire. Rose watched as the Doctor's body burned, with the sun setting in front of them. It felt that the sun wasn't only setting on the day, it was setting on the end of an era. Tomorrow the sun would rise again, but it wouldn't be rising on the same world. It would be rising to a world without the Doctor and she didn't know what type of world that would be. She had her arms folded tightly over her chest as if she was trying desperately to keep the pieces of her shattered heart held together. Rose didn't know how many times she had to say goodbye to the Doctor because he had left her behind in some way or other but this was the second time that those goodbyes were said at his funeral and it crushed her on the inside. She was devastated that she finally made it back to this universe, _his_ universe, and she was too late. And what made the pain so much more acute was she had foolishly allowed herself to actually hope that she would find him and be able to be with him again. He had left her again and this time it was permanent.

River watched Rose from a distance. River was not often a jealous woman, but as she watched Rose kiss the Doctor goodbye, she couldn't help the pang she felt in her stomach. Knowing the Doctor's future, she knew Rose's future as well in a way. Rose was the woman she would never be to the Doctor and it hurt River deeply. To love and not be loved the same way in return. This also signaled a loss for River. This was the beginning of the downwards slope of the Doctor remembering less and less of her.

"River, who are they?" Rory asked quietly breaking through her thoughts.

"Friends of the Doctor's. They knew him in another life," she said simply before turning her attention to the only person she did not know. "Who are you? Why did you come?"

"The same reason as you," the old man responded holding out a blue envelope that was familiar to them all.

"Doctor Song, Amy, Rory, Rose, Captain Harkness. I'm Canton Everett Delaware the third. I won't be seeing you again, but you'll be seeing me." He said cryptically with a small smile before heading back to his truck.

"Five," River said to herself after Canton left.

"Sorry, what?" Rory asked.

River turned around. "Jack, Rose, do you still have your envelope?"

Jack narrowed his eyes as he pulled the crumpled envelope from his coat pocket and handed it over. He wanted to know how this woman knew who he was, but that was a question for another time.

She quickly glanced at the back for confirmation before handing it back. "The Doctor numbered the envelopes."

She turned on her heels and started walking to the station wagon. "We need to get back to the diner. This isn't the place to talk."

* * *

The drive back to the diner was a somber one, each person drowning in their thoughts of the Doctor. Rose was sitting in the back staring blankly out the window. Silent, uncontrollable tears were spilling out of her eyes and down her cheeks. Her mind was numb as it tried to get a handle on the events of that day. It really hadn't even been a full day yet. For her, everything has happened within a few hours. She started to silently curse the cruelness of the universe and fate. Yes, this universe allowed her back in but the price seemed to be in the Doctor's death.

When they pulled up to the diner, Rose got out of the car, her movements very mechanical as if she were on autopilot. As they all walked up to the entrance, Jack grabbed Rose's arm and held her back as the others walked into the diner.

"I don't want to talk about it and no, I'm not okay right now," Rose said lifelessly trying to anticipate Jack's questions before he could ask them.

"That's not what I want to know, Rosie," Jack said gently. "Are you going to finally tell me how you got back?"

Rose wiped away some of her tears from her cheeks as she pulled out the metallic, circular disc that transported her just this morning between realms. She held it out on her palm. "This is it."

Jack picked it up and examined it. It didn't have any seams or buttons. The only two distinguishable features on it was the tiny square on the face that had emitted the red and green light when it first activated and a small square latch on the back that was hiding the needle that pricked Rose in the hand. He handed it back. "What is it?"

Rose shrugged. "It was in the envelope with the card. It activated as soon as it touched my skin. The next thing I know, I was waking up with a splitting head ache and your face right above mine."

"Where's-" But Jack's question fell silent at Rose's face. She didn't need him to finish the question to know what he was going to say. He wanted to know about the Metacrisis Doctor. The Doctor 2.0 and why he wasn't with her. Her face crumpled.

"Oh, I'm sorry," Jack whispered, guilt washing over him. He grabbed Rose and held her as fresh tears fell down her face.

* * *

River briskly walked into the diner talking over her shoulder to Rory and Amy. "The envelopes were numbered. You were 4, I was 3, Canton was 5, and Rose and Jack were 2."

"So?" Rory asked, still trying to figure out what was important about numbers on an envelope.

"So, where's 1?" River watched as he slowly worked it out.

"What, you think he invited someone else?"

"Well, he must have. He planned all of this, to the last detail."

"Will you two shut up? It doesn't matter," Amy said dully behind them. She didn't understand what they were trying to figure out. The Doctor was gone. It was all over now.

"He was up to something," River said, ignoring Amy. Her mind was already working ahead trying to make connections with what had just happened and why they were all asked to be there. She thought back to those last conversations that they had together. "Space, 1969. What did he mean?"

"You're still talking, but it doesn't matter, he's dead," Amy continued ignoring River's question.

"Hey, it mattered to him," Rory said, finally answering Amy.

"So it matters to us," River finished.

"He's dead." Amy repeated slowly, as if it was Rory and River who did not understand.

"But he still needs us. I know. Amy, I know. But right now we have to focus," River said gently, grasping her arms.

"Look." Rory pointed to a table near the back of the diner. Lying innocently on the red table face was another blue envelope. Rory ran over to the counter. "Excuse me, who was sitting over there?" he asked, pointing to the table.

The cook shrugged, "Some guy."

"The Doctor knew he was going to his death, so he sent out messages. When you know it's the end, who do you call?" River was excited.

"Er, your friends. People you trust," Rory supplied.

River walked over to the blue envelope and snatched it up. On the back of it was a small number 1. She held it up for them to see. "Number 1. Who did The Doctor trust the most?"

* * *

The Doctor was in a semi good mood. He had just found his favorite straw and that made him happy. However there were still a couple of things that he was trying to puzzle out, one of them being a very conspicuous blue invitation he had received and the other a bright yellow flyer he had seen on a diner table. The envelope, he has been puzzling over it for some time now. It had materialized mysteriously on the TARDIS a few weeks ago and he had only just decided to find out what it was all about. His gut was telling him that he really shouldn't have arrived at the diner and that he should be running away, after all the person who sent the invitation to him knew how to accurately find him enough to make the envelope appear in the TARDIS in the first place. And then there was the matter that it was only a date and map coordinates to this diner that he found himself in. No note or any other hint as to who sent it and why. It was another potentially dangerous puzzle to solve and that is what made it so irresistible to him. He was like a moth to a flame; he couldn't help but be drawn in by the mystery and potential danger of it all. The yellow flyer was something that has been troubling him far more recently. He picked it up while he was sitting in the diner waiting for who knows what. But with the yellow flyer paired with the blue envelope, he started to get the feeling that maybe he should have listened to his gut just this once. So with straw in hand he swung open the restroom door leading back into the diner. Whoever it was that he would be meeting, they were officially late and as he looked up apparently very angry at him.

"This is cold. Even by your standards, this is cold." River Song's furious eyes met his. It didn't matter who the Doctor thought might have been meeting him, finding an angry River Song was never a good thing, especially since he apparently was the one at fault.

"Or hello, as people used to say," he quipped, unsure what to make of Amy's, Rory's, and River's reactions.

"Doctor?" Amy asked, giving him a strange look, almost as if she expected to never see him again.

"I just popped out to get my special straw. It adds more fizz," he said with a smile holding up his straw all chewed up at the end. The smile slipped a little from his face as Amy started to circle him, still giving him that strange look of disbelief.

"You're okay. How can you be okay?"

"Hey, of course I'm okay. I'm always okay. I'm the King of Okay," the Doctor said gently as he enveloped her in a hug. He frowned as he heard the words spoken out loud. "Oh, that's a rubbish title. Forget that title. Rory the Roman! That's a good title. Hello, Rory." He said giving Rory a hug.

"And Doctor River Song. Oh, you bad, bad girl. What trouble have you got for me this time?" he asked, a mischievous grin spreading across his face. The grin quickly disappeared as his head was whipped to the side and he felt a searing hot pain on his cheek. River had just slapped him, hard.

"Okay. I'm assuming that's for something I haven't done yet."

"Yes, it is." She said, her hurt and anger still simmering below the surface.

"Good. Looking forward to it." He said looking around the diner. He was going through a mental check list of the things he had recently done with the Ponds and what he might have told them to make them so worried. He came up blank. He had to do a double take when his eyes passed by the diner entrance. He couldn't believe at who was looking at it.

"Jack, what are you doing here?"

"Hello to you too, Doc," Jack said with narrowed eyes. "I love the new face."

"Don't get any ideas," the Doctor threatened. The Doctor froze when he caught sight of an even more impossible person behind Jack. Rose had just entered the diner. "Rose."

"I don't understand. How can you be here?" Rory asked, poking the Doctor in the chest, like he would a strange object that he was unsure about.

"I was invited. Date, map reference. Same as you lot, I assume, otherwise it's a hell of a coincidence." The Doctor brushed past Rory and walked up to Rose. In all his shock of seeing her, standing there right in front of him, it didn't escape his notice that she was different. This was not the same pink and yellow human he had left behind. He just wasn't able to put his finger on what was different about her. Yes, she looked miserable and sad, which hurt him to see, but those were normal human emotions and the difference was non emotional. All the same, he was extremely confused, shocked, overjoyed and a plethora of other emotions at the sight of her. She had just noticed him herself and he could see conflicting emotions ripple across her face. There was happiness, shock, confusion, grief, hurt and most surprisingly of all to the Doctor, recognition filling her eyes. While surprise was one of the emotions that flitted across her face, it wasn't because of his newly regenerated face. It was for a different reason. But before the Doctor could say or do anything, Rose's face settled on one emotion and it was anger and she slapped him as hard as she could.

"Not quite the happy reunion I've been dreaming of. Is Jackie hidden somewhere in your arm?" he asked incredulously, as he rubbed his smarting cheek. He turned to look at Rose again and before he could say anything else, Rose pushed past him.

"Don't – just don't," was all she said. The sorrow was etched deep in her voice. His eyes narrowed as his gaze followed her.

"River, what's going on?" Amy asked, watching the Doctor with confusion. Her grief was still masking what reason and her gut would have told her.

"Amy, ask him what age he is."

"That's a bit personal." He said offhandedly, still focused on Rose.

"Tell her. Tell her what age you are." River demanded.

"Nine hundred and nine." His voice started to get an edge to it as he looked at River.

Amy furrowed her brow, "Yeah, but you said you were-"

"So where does that leave us, huh?" River quickly cut in, afraid Amy was going to give something away. "Jim the fish? Have we done Jim the fish yet?"

But the Doctor was ignoring her. He was more concerned about the impossible woman that was in front of him. Rose Tyler, defender of the universe, had just slapped him. She had never slapped him before, only her mother. Something was off about her and he was extremely close to figuring out what it was. He could sense it like a word on the tip of the tongue that never comes out.

"I don't understand." Amy said, her face still a mask of confusion.

"Yeah, you do." Rory said unhelpfully.

"I don't!" The Doctor snapped. "What are we all doing here? Why is Rose here? How are you here?" He walked back over to Rose and bore his gaze into her eyes. Rose held the gaze with silent defiance. It was all confusing the Doctor and he was desperately trying to puzzle it out. She didn't seem surprised of his new face, like she already knew what she was looking for. Then he spotted it. The reason why she was seemed so different to him.

"How long has it been Rose? I can see it in your eyes; they are as deep and ageless as time itself. What happened?" He pleaded with her softly. Rose just clenched her jaw and remained mute.

River spoke up after a minute. "We've been recruited. Something to do with space 1969, and a man called Canton Everett Delaware the third."

"Recruited by who?" He asked still looking at Rose with such intensity, like he was trying to solve a puzzle.

"Someone who trusts you more than anybody else in the universe."

That caught his attention. He broke his gaze away from Rose and looked at River. "And who's that?"

"Spoilers."

The Doctor clenched his jaw at River's response. He was getting sick of that word. Especially since it brought to the forefront that he was the one who knew the least of what was going on. And the feeling of being the last to know was a new experience for him, one that he already detested with great measure.

"Alright everyone, off we pop," he said with mustered enthusiasm as he walked back through the restroom doors and towards the TARDIS.

* * *

"Right, introductions!" The Doctor exclaimed trying to alleviate the thick tension within the control room as he ran around the TARDIS control pane. "Ponds, this is Captain Jack Harkness and Rose Tyler. I traveled with them back in the day. Still unsure how they got here," he said glancing at Rose to see if she would fill in the blanks. She just gazed back, resolutely silent. "Rose, Jack, these are the Ponds: Amy and Rory, and this is Doctor River Song."

"Actually it's Williams," Rory grumbled.

The Doctor was already running around the control panel, pulling on levers and punching seemingly random buttons. "So! 1969, that's an easy one! Funny, how some years are easy. Now, 1482, full of glitches. Now then, Canton Everett Delaware the third. That was his name, yeah? How many of those can there be? Well, three, I suppose."

Rose couldn't bear to watch him anymore. Different face, but he was still the same man. While nine seemed to be extremely different from ten, she couldn't help but notice all the similarities between ten and this new regeneration and it was killing her on the inside. She quickly ran up the stairs and down a hall to get away from the control room. She needed space to gather her head and breathe. Amy wasn't faring any better. She couldn't even look at the Doctor from the moment she entered the TARDIS. She had just watched the Doctor die in front of her eyes and her he was still living and breathing. She quickly ran down the stairs to under the control room so that she could think things through. River was close to follow.

"Rory, is everybody cross with me for some reason?" the Doctor asked, as soon as River disappeared down the stairs, trying to sound as light and nonchalant as he could.

"I'll find out." Rory quickly ran down the stairs to find Amy and River.

The Doctor remained silent for a minute before he turned to the one remaining person in the control room. "What happened, Jack? How is Rose here?"

"No way. I'm not getting in the middle of this. You need to talk to Rose if you want to know," Jack said firmly.

"And how am I supposed to talk with someone who isn't speaking to me?"

"You're the Doctor, I have faith that you can figure it out." With that Jack turned and ran up the stairs to find Rose leaving the Doctor to his own musings.

* * *

"I can't do this, Jack, not again." Rose said pacing up and down the hall. She was holding the silver disc that brought her to this universe in her hands. "As soon as I figure out how to get this bloody disc working again, I'm leaving."

"Rosie, he needs you," Jack said leaning against the wall with folded arms as he watched her.

"He's a dead man walking. He's going to die. I have already seen that happen too many times and I can't watch losing him again. My heart is in small enough pieces as it is. I'm not strong enough," she said in a small voice covering her face in her hands. She stopped moving and had her back to Jack.

"I know you, Rose. I know you can't just stand aside and let him die if there is something that can be done."

"And if we can't save him? What then?" She had turned around and her eyes were looking at Jack imploringly, asking him to tell her what to do. She started speaking again when Jack didn't answer. "I get left behind while he leaves me…again."

"Back on the beach you said he had to have had a plan. Maybe he does and bringing you back is part of that plan. Are you going to abandon him when he needs you most?" The question hung in the air. Rose felt a jolt of guilt and pain at the thought that she would be abandoning the Doctor, but she also knew what her physical and emotional limits were and she had passed those limits hours ago.

The Doctor's voice broke the silence. "I'm being extremely clever up here, and there's no one to stand around looking impressed! What's the point in having you all?"

* * *

River looked up at the control room floor after hearing the Doctor's pout. "Couldn't you just slap him sometimes?"

Amy looked at her pleadingly. "River, we can't just let him die. We have to stop it. How can you be okay with this?"

"The Doctor's death doesn't frighten me. Nor does my own. There's a far worse day coming for me," she said grimly before turning to go up the stairs again. Amy reluctantly followed close behind Rory.

* * *

Rose hung back near the stairs as she watched the Doctor work at the control panel. Even though she was finally back on the TARDIS she was unsure of where she fit into things. Along with the Doctor's new face and attire, the TARDIS herself wore a new face. While she admitted it was a lot nicer than the control room she was used to, with the glass floor and nice side walls, she still missed the old room, with the coral prominent on the sides. Jack's question was nagging at her. Could she really abandon the Doctor, especially if having her here meant he had a chance of living. There was once a time when she knew the answer to that question without hesitation, but she wasn't so sure anymore of what that answer was. She didn't believe that staying would really make a difference. River seemed extremely capable at handling things. Amy was smart and a perfect companion to the doctor. The Doctor had a vibrant dynamic with Amy, Rory, and River and she felt as if she were intruding.

"Time isn't a straight line. It's all bumpy wumpy. There's loads of boring stuff like Sundays and Tuesdays and Thursday afternoons. But now and then there are Saturdays. Big temporal tipping points when anything's possible." The Doctor glanced at Rose as he put the emphasis on the word 'possible'. "The Tardis can't resist them, like a moth to a flame. She loves a party, so I give her 1969 and NASA, because that's space in the sixties, and Canton Everett Delaware the third, and this is where she's pointing," the Doctor said with a flourish, pointing to the monitor that swiveled around the control panel.

"Washington D.C., April the eighth, 1969. So why haven't we landed?" Amy asked looking at the monitor.

"Because that's not where we're going," the Doctor said decisively. He had decided he had had enough and that he would finally follow his first instinct of running.

"Oh. Where are we going?" Rory asked, confused.

"Home. Well, you two are," he said gesturing to Amy and Rory. "Off you pop and make babies. And you, Doctor Song, back to prison. Jack, I'm sure Torchwood is missing you by now. And me? I'm late for a biplane lesson in 1911. Or it could be knitting. Knitting or biplanes. One or the other. Rose is welcome to come with."

The Doctor pressed a couple of more buttons before he turned and flopped into the captain's chair, bringing his hand to his forehead and crossing his legs. His demeanor changed to a man who was giving up.

"What?" He had removed his hand from covering his face and he was looking at them all with his childish amusement gone from his face and voice. "A mysterious summons. You think I'm just going to go? Who sent those messages? I know you know. I can see it in your faces. Don't play games with me. Don't ever, ever think you're capable of that." He glanced at Rose as he spoke.

"You're going to have to trust us this time," River said.

The Doctor sprung from his chair and brought his face to a stop in front of River's. "Trust you? Sure. But, first of all, Doctor Song, just one thing. Who are you? You're someone from my future. Getting that. But who?" River just stared back, silent and unwilling to answer the question. The Doctor was starting to get really annoyed with all the silent non-answers. "Okay. Why are you in prison? Who did you kill, hmm? Now, I love a bad girl, me, but trust you? Seriously."

River looked as if she were just slapped in the face. It was beginning. Though the Doctor was getting younger more often every time they met, this was the first time he had outright told her he didn't trust her and he scoffed at the thought that he could.

"Trust me," Amy said quietly.

The Doctor looked over at her. "Okay."

Amy continued, "You have to do this, and you can't ask why."

"Are you being threatened? Is someone making you say that?" His eyes were boring deeply into hers, searching for the truth.

She held her head high and held the gaze. "No."

"You're lying."

"I'm not lying."

"Swear to me. Swear to me on something that matters."

Amy thought a moment. Then she thought of the perfect thing from back when she was a child. "Fish fingers and custard."

The Doctor searched her eyes before nodding. He was disappointed. Amelia Pond was keeping something from him, but there was nothing he could say or do to get it out of her. She swore on fish fingers and custard. "My life in your hands, Amelia Pond."

Turning around he clapped his hands together. "So! Canton Everett Delaware the third. Who's he?"


	3. Chapter 3

**Author's Note: **Oh boy! It has been a smidge harder than I thought to find a way to organically fit Rose and Jack into the episode and how that would affect the plot. As well, a quick pardon for all the sciency stuff that I have no idea about of which I am talking, I just wanted to make it sound cool. As always, a many thanks for your favorites, follows, and kind reviews; I feel like Bashful I blush so much from reading all your flattering words! I hope you enjoy this latest installment. I must note that this chapter is actually half of what it was going to be originally. Unfortunately, it was starting to get extremely long, hence the chop. With that said, while this chapter doesn't deviate all too much from the episode, starting with the next chapter we start to see the impact of how Rose and Jack would possibly change things. *Dialogue was lifted from the episode _The Impossible Astronaut_

* * *

The TARDIS prided herself in her ability to thoroughly search for whatever information the Doctor may need. She always took care of her Thief – her mad man in a box – ever since he got the notion that it was he himself who was doing the thieving all those long centuries ago on Gallifrey. She, of course, knew the truth of it. It was she who spirited the Doctor away and she had been running with him ever since. Companions may come and go, but she had and always would remain by his side forever. So when Doctor River Song started clacking away at the TARDIS keyboard to search for a one Canton Everett Delaware the Third, the TARDIS was ready to deliver. She searched through the man's timeline and every record possible until a picture of a short, handsome pug faced man with a receding dark hairline popped up on the monitor along with every detail of his life whether it was publicly known or not. There were no secrets that could be kept from the TARDIS. His life was an open book for her to read.

"Canton Everett Delaware the Third. Ex FBI. Got kicked out. He was seen as too progressive for the time for loving a man," River announced as she and the Doctor were looking at the monitor hanging over the control panel. Her eyes glided over the screen looking for anything essential that would help them better understand what Mr. Delaware would be to them in 1969. She continued typing on the keyboard searching for any other connected information. Amy and Rory hovered behind them, watching the screen curious as to who this man was and why he was or would be important to the Doctor and how he fit in with the Doctor's death.

"Six weeks after he left the Bureau, the President contacted him for a private meeting," River continued.

"Yeah, 1969. Who's President?" the Doctor asked.

"Richard Milhous Nixon," Jack said joining them at the screen. He turned to River and held out his hand whilst giving her his most charming smile. "Captain Jack Harkness. I don't think we were properly introduced a little bit ago."

"You couldn't handle me," River said smiling as her eyes roved over his body.

"I doubt that, I'm great at handling things," Jack said giving her a wink. "But you probably already knew that as you already seem to know who I am, which hardly seems fair. I try to make it a point to be on familiar terms with every person that knows me, especially if they are as vivaciously gorgeous as yourself."

"I will tell you now what I told you when I first met you, Captain Jack Harkness; charms and flattery will get you everywhere," River said seductively.

The Doctor rolled his eyes and sighed dramatically. "Yes, I'm sure your personal history together is all very fascinating. But we have more important things to be doing right now than flirting," the Doctor complained shooting Jack an accusatory look. River smirked at the Doctor's response. He had always been a jealous creature.

"Nixon highlights. Vietnam, Watergate. There's some good stuff, too," River said as her eyes returned to the screen that had replaced information of Canton Everett Delaware the Third with that of President Richard Milhous Nixon.

"Not enough," the Doctor grumbled.

"Hippie!" River accused.

"Archaeologist," the Doctor countered like it was an insult.

Rose watched the easy, teasing banter between the Doctor and River with an unrecognized pang of envy. The anger that she had felt earlier had been slowly ebbing down until it dissipated into nothing. She could never stay angry at the Doctor long, no matter what he did. However, she still wasn't prepared to be completely open with him as well. She didn't know this new face he wore. While she knew it was unrealistic to find the Doctor having not moved on to different companions and people in his life - her Doctor had done that exact same thing when she was first trapped in the parallel universe, having met Martha and Donna - if she were being honest with herself, it is what she was hoping she would find. She had imagined what it would be like to see the Doctor again and it always was him waiting for her with his foxy face and great spiky brown hair, wearing his brown pinstripe suit with no time really having been passed. However, that was not the reality she was facing. The Doctor had regenerated on her again and had a youthful face with a big chin. While it may be the same man underneath it all, with the new face came a new personality. And to watch him talk and search out advice from River, it made her feel envious that it wasn't she he was turning to. At least Amy was married. But River, she was an unknown and she seemed to be far more of an equal to the Doctor than Rose ever thought herself to be. She felt she could barely keep up with him when he was a human clone, how could she ever compete when she was faced with the original? As well, in the end if she did leave the TARDIS what she wanted most for the Doctor was for him to be happy and to never be alone, because after all wasn't that what he wanted for her too when he left her on the beach of Bad Wolf Bay with his clone.

Rose let her hand gently run over the buttons and levers and switches on the TARDIS control panel. This panel was so different and yet the same. It still had the same buttons and levers and switches, but while the old desktop looked more like an unfinished panel with no skin, having all the guts and wires and piping exposed for all to see, this panel had a skin of an odd assortment of curios. There was what looked like a typewriter and a vintage phonograph trumpet speaker curling out of the TARDIS time rotor. It seemed to suit this regeneration of the Doctor with his quirky professor style of dress.

"Hello. It's been a while," Rose murmured softly. She felt warmth beneath her fingers as if the TARDIS were welcoming her home.

"Okay, since I don't know what I'm getting into this time, for once I'm being discreet. I'm putting the engines on silent," the Doctor declared as he pulled a lever, breaking Rose from her thoughts. The TARDIS shuddered and there was a loud, screeching wail that sounded to be coming from deep within the engines, like metal grinding against metal. Rose winced at the sound and reacted automatically as if she were travelling with her human Doctor husband in their TARDIS. True to form, being the same man as the Doctor, her husband would get so caught up in the moment when trying to show off and would forget a couple of switches in the process. It seemed this regeneration had the same problem. Rose quickly threw a switch and the TARDIS went quiet.

The Doctor turned to her with his brow furrowed, "Did you do something?"

Rose froze for millisecond. It had been so easy to slip into what she and her husband had and forget the situation on hand. But the Doctor was not her husband and this was not their TARDIS. She shrugged her shoulders, "Just saying 'hello' to the old girl."

He narrowed his eyes and considered her for a moment before continuing his dance around the control panel although his voice took a second to regain its regular childlike enthusiasm.

"Putting the outer shield on invisible. Haven't done this in a while. Big drain on the power."

"You can turn the Tardis invisible?" Rory asked, impressed by the ability.

The Doctor threw a final lever up with a loud yell of satisfaction and smile.

Rose cringed as bright lights flooded the control room. It was amazing the ship could still run given the misuse she takes at the hand of the Doctor. But Rose stayed her hand this time. Her knowledge of flying the ship would only bring questions. And she wasn't ready to give any answers yet.

River gave Rose a wry, knowing look before flipping a switch. The lights cut off.

The Doctor's head popped into view from the other side of the console. "Er, did you touch something?"

River shook her head and with an innocent smile said, "Just admiring your skills, sweetie."

"Good. You might learn something. Okay." The Doctor pulled the monitor in front of his face expecting to look at their surroundings. Unfortunately it was blank. Trying to cover up his confusion he quickly brushed it off like he was expecting that to happen. "Now I can't check the scanner. It doesn't work when we're cloaked. Just give us a mo." The Doctor ran over to the TARDIS door to find out where they were. He turned to see Amy, Rory and River getting ready to follow him.

"Whoa! Whoa, whoa, whoa. You lot, wait a moment. We're in the middle of the most powerful city in the most powerful country on Earth. Let's take it slow." The Doctor straightened his bowtie and slipped out the TARDIS doors.

As soon as the TARDIS door closed with a creak behind the Doctor, Rose watched as River went back to the scanner. The older woman pulled out some tools from under the control panel and went to work on trying to undo the damage the Doctor did to the scanner. There was a small pop and a flash of light, followed by a small tendril of smoke leaking out of the control panel lazily curling and wending its way to the ceiling. The air held in it the tangy metallic smell of electricity.

"If you disable the neutron transference conductor before opening the Ebsmith you could avoid the electrical feedback," Rose said as she reached over River and pressed a series of buttons.

"That might have been true for a panel using the Galitron board but this panel bypasses it by having a Zxorn dampener installed," River replied a little patronizingly before she pulled out some wires and started to cut and splice them together.

"And yet, there was still sparking," Rose countered with a tight smile.

"Sparks will always fly when opposite charges attract. Basic physics."

Annoyance and a little bit of anger flitted across Rose's face. She opened her mouth and would have said something extremely rude if Jack hadn't stepped in.

"Ladies, no need to fight about me behind my back. I'm happy to stand right in front of you while you fight," Jack said with a pleasant smile trying to alleviate the tension that was starting to build.

"Don't worry Jack, I will provide a great many of fights for you," River said with a wink before going back to her work.

"Is that so?" Jack asked surprised with a grin spreading across his face at the thought.

"Time travel, isn't it a funny sort of thing?"

"Yeah it is," Jack said laughing.

"Unbelievable, the Doctor was right about you, Jack, and your flirting" Rose muttered irritably before going to the other side of the control panel. She decided that she had had enough of Doctor River Song and Jack was not making it any better.

"Finally!" River exclaimed as the scanner flickered to life and a video image came flashing across the screen. They all gathered around the scanner to watch the Doctor.

"He said the scanner wouldn't work," Rory said confused.

"I know. Bless him."

"Is that the Oval Office?" Amy asked in disbelief. "That idiot alien is going to get himself caught."

"How 'bout we get some audio." Rose flipped some switches and pressed a button. Voices filled the TARDIS.

They turned their attention to the scanner as they watched the Doctor sneak up towards the President's desk in the Oval office.

* * *

Today was turning out to be full of surprises for the Doctor and all because he couldn't resist the mystery of a blue envelope. He decided he needed to reevaluate his propensity for the color blue and all things mysterious. As it was though, all the surprises hadn't been half bad. Rose was back, which was brilliant - no, it was more than brilliant; however she was mad at him and worst of all she was hiding something from him, which was not so brilliant. Jack was in the TARDIS; the Doctor was still deciding if that was a good surprise or bad although he was inclined to lean towards bad. Having Jack around could be a nuisance at times with him trying to smarm up to anything that had a pulse, although the man couldn't die which was extremely helpful on occasion. Then there was the fact that the TARDIS landed them right in the middle of the Oval Office. That surprise was delightful, the Doctor decided as he crept his way toward the President's desk to listen to a conversation that was being held between two men, one who was sitting in a chair in front of the Presidential desk and a taller gentleman standing with his backed turned to the Doctor looking out the window, who could only be assumed to be the President of the United States, Richard Nixon. Which meant the other fellow had to be none other than his mysterious pal Canton Everett Delaware the Third. A recording filled the air. The gruff western drawl of President Nixon was heard.

_"Hello? Who is this? This is President Nixon. Who's calling? Is this you again? _

_"Mr President?" _The voice of a frightened child filled the air.

_"This is the President, yes."_

_"I'm scared, Mr President. I'm scared of the spaceman."_

"A little girl?" Canton asked, his voice just as gravelly as his future self.

"Boy," the President responded with certainty.

"How can you be sure?" Canton asked not entirely convinced. The President held up a finger indicating that he should wait and listen. The President's voice continued on the recording.

_"What spaceman? Where are you phoning from? Where are you right now? Who are you?"_

_"Jefferson Adams Hamilton."_

_"Jefferson, listen to me."_

There was a click as the child disconnected the phone call.

"Surely this is something the Bureau could handle, sir," Canton said after a moment.

"These calls happen wherever I am. Whether I am away from the White House travelling to a different state or in the country at Camp David, this boy knows exactly where I am. How do I know the Bureau isn't involved? I can't trust anyone."

While listening to the phone call, the Doctor had pulled out a little spiral flip notebook and started to take notes. It was all really fascinating information and he couldn't chance missing a single syllable of it. A little girl who was terrified of a spaceman. When does that ever happen? Children love spacemen, dreams of growing up and becoming astronauts flit around their little heads. Then there was the impossible feat of this child being able to phone the President directly no matter where he was. And how did three founding Americans fit into it all – unless. He quickly jotted down his thoughts, his mind already coming up with a theory as to how Jefferson, Adams, and Hamilton puzzled into it all. As the pencil scratched across the notepad, the Doctor started to get a tingle on the back of his neck. It wasn't the type of tingle that came when you were cold or excited. It was the type of tingle that came when someone was looking at you. He also noticed that Canton and the President weren't talking anymore. He glanced up to encourage them to keep talking when he realized a very important bit of information.

"Oh. Hello. Bad moment," the Doctor said slowly backing away from the desk. Canton was on his feet and was slowly working his way out of his shock at finding an oddly dressed intruder in the Oval Office. The President was quicker to react and hit a button on his desk. The immense weight of how not good this situation was, was not lost on the Doctor. He looked around the office feigning surprise, "Oh look, this is the Oval Office. I was looking for the er, oblong room. I'll just be off, then, shall I?"

The Doctor turned on his heel and walked in the general direction of the TARDIS. Unfortunately, he misjudged where he thought the TARDIS was standing and where it actually was. He walked straight into the side of the TARDIS with a loud smack, making it look like he hit an invisible wall and knocked himself onto his back.

* * *

The whole inside of the TARDIS shuddered from the impact of the Doctor's push, causing her occupants to lose their balance.

"Some things never change," she muttered the same time River said, "Every time." Their eyes were glued to the scanner as they watched the Doctor leap to his feet.

"Don't worry! It always does that when it's cloaked," the Doctor said while grasping his jaw. The TARDIS had a mean smack, almost as bad as Jackie Tyler's slap. However, he was only barely able regain his bearing before Canton tackled him from behind and wrestled him to the ground. Unfortunately for the Doctor, he was nowhere near his physical stature of his ninth regeneration and his eleventh was not much of a fighting man. It was a short fight with the Doctor yelling out futile protests and the fight mainly consisted of the Doctor having his face smashed into the carpet while Canton had the Doctor's hand twisted behind his back. The doors to the Oval Office burst open as the infamous Secret Service came streaming into the office wearing identical black suits and each man armed with an identical gun that was raised and ready to shoot.

The first agent who ran through the door was barking orders of an immediate lockdown to the rest of the men as they ran past him.

"River, have you got my scanner working yet?" the Doctor yelled to the air as the Secret Service agents swarmed around the office. Three agents joined Canton in securing the Doctor and keeping him smothered on the floor. One of the agents was particularly aggressive with securing the Doctor by keeping the Doctor's face smashed to the floor with a bony elbow. It was all quite rude and not at all going according to plan the Doctor thought.

"Get the President out of here. Sir, you have to go with them, now!" the same agent who ordered the lockdown shouted at the President. The service men who had ran directly to the President when they entered the room didn't wait for a response from him. One agent grabbed the President by his arm and started to lead him to the door.

"Rose! River! Make her blue again!" the Doctor yelled in desperation.

The occupants of the Oval Office watched with slack jaws as a big blue Police box shimmered into reality off to the far side of the office right in front of the Doctor and the agents who held him on the ground. The Secret Service agents slowly lowered their guns in shock as their brains did not believe what their eyes told them they were seeing.

"What the hell is that?" the President demanded in amazement.

While they were all mesmerized by the TARDIS, the Doctor slipped from the men who had momentarily forgotten that they were supposed to be holding someone on the floor and he looked around the office trying to form a plan. He hadn't really thought ahead at what might have happened if he were caught. His mind was drawing a blank until his eyes rested on the most powerful chair behind the most powerful desk in the most powerful office of the most powerful house in the most powerful capital city of the most powerful country, which happened to be empty of the most powerful man on Earth. The Doctor simply could not resist.

"Mr. President," the Doctor said in his terrible American drawl drawing the attention of the Secret Service and the President. There was a cascade of guns being cocked as they all aimed their barrels at the Doctor who was now lounging quite comfortably in the President's chair with his feet propped up on the President's desk. "That child just told you everything you need to know, but you weren't listening. Never mind, though, because the answer's yes. I'll take the case."

The Doctor continued in a smug manner. "Fellows, the guns, really? I just walked into the highest security office in the United States and parked a big blue box on the rug. Do you think you can just shoot me?"

"They're Americans!" Jack yelled running out of the TARDIS followed swiftly by River and Rose, each with their hands raised over their heads. The guns that were aimed at the Doctor were quickly pointed at the three new intruders with a new round of clacking as they were cocked once again.

"Don't shoot. Definitely no shooting," the Doctor yelled his demeanor quickly changing from smug superiority to panic. He quickly brought his feet crashing to the floor and stood up slowly while raising his hands above his head.

"Nobody shoot us either. Very much not in need of getting shot. Look, we've got our hands up," Rory said as he and Amy cautiously left the safety of the TARDIS. The Secret Service were pointing their guns back and forth between the Doctor and these new intruders unsure of who was the bigger threat.

"Who the hell are you?" the President demanded looking at them all, baffled at what was going on.

"Sir, you need to stay back," Canton directed. This was a security nightmare and every American's worst fear. The President was exposed to a possible threat on his life in what was supposed to be the most secure room in America and it was infiltrated by an odd assortment of five men and woman with a vanishing blue Police box. And to add insult to injury over the poor security this ragtag group was British no less.

"But who are they and what is that box?" the President asked, not caring about the possible threat he may be facing.

"It's a police box. Can't you read?" the Doctor asked quite rudely looking from the TARDIS to the President. He quickly pulled out his psychic paper and flashed it to the President. "I'm your new undercover agent on loan from Scotland Yard. Code name the Doctor. These are my top operatives, the Legs, the Nose, the Flirt, Mrs Robinson and Shiver," the Doctor continued pointing to Amy, Rory, Jack, River, and Rose respectively.

"Oh I hate you," River growled under her breath as she heard the Doctor's codename for her.

"No you don't," the Doctor said reflexively, brushing off her anger.

"Who are you?" the President slowly asked again in bewilderment.

"Nah, boring question. Who's phoning you? That's interesting. Because Canton Three is right. That was definitely a girl's voice, which means there's only one place in America she can be phoning from," the Doctor said sitting back down in the President's chair and promptly propping his feet up on the desk again.

"Where?" Canton asked, his curiosity piqued.

"Do not engage with the intruder, Mr Delaware," the head Secret Service agent snapped.

"You heard everything I heard. It's simple enough. Give me five minutes, I'll explain. On the other hand, lay a finger on me or my friends, and you'll never, ever know," the Doctor said simply, giving them an interesting ultimatum. He had Canton's interest and that was all that mattered.

"How did you get it in here? I mean, you didn't carry it in." Canton mused as he pointed to the TARDIS.

"Clever, eh?" the Doctor said, waggling his eyebrows.

"Love it," Canton said in amusement like he just witnessed the best magic trick ever invented.

"Do not compliment the intruder!" the head agent yelled at Canton exasperated.

"Five minutes?" Canton asked the Doctor, ignoring the orders that had been shouted at him.

"Five," the Doctor affirmed.

"Mr President, that man is a clear and present danger to –" the head agent shouted, trying desperately to regain control of the situation.

"Mr President, that man walked in here with a big blue box and five of his friends, and that's the man he walked past," Canton interrupted pointing to the head agent. "One of them's worth listening to. I say we give him five minutes. See if he delivers."

"Thanks, Canton," the Doctor said with a smile.

"If he doesn't, I'll shoot him myself," Canton threatened simply without fanfare.

"Not so thanks," the Doctor said, his smile slipping.

"Sir, I cannot recommend –" the head agent started again.

"Shut up, Peterson!" the President said gruffly. He took a minute to think things through. "All right, five minutes."

The Doctor sat up straight in the chair and put his hands on the desk. It had all gone remarkably well, far better than what he was aiming for. He was as well thrilled that he was in the situation he was in. He had always wanted to bark orders at Americans and give out a list of demands. There were so many great things he could ask for. Right, everyone was looking at him. It was time to get down to business.

"I'm going to need a SWAT team, ready to mobilize. Street level maps covering all of Florida. A pot of coffee, twelve Jammie Dodgers and a fez," the Doctor said feeling presidential.

"Get him his maps," Canton ordered, ignoring the rest of the Doctor's capricious demands.

The tension in the Oval Office was thick while waiting for the maps to be collected and the silence was palpable. Distrust hung in the air like a damp rain cloud threatening to become something far larger and scarier if a wrong move was made. The Secret Service had holstered their weapons for now, however their doubts of the Doctor and his friends were still evident on their faces. While they had been provided proof of a badge from the Doctor verifying that he was indeed working with Scotland Yard, they still didn't quite believe him. Because of this they decided to keep the Doctor separated from his friends. Amy watched Rose finally giving reign to the curiosity as to who this woman could be. She knew things about the TARDIS like River did. However, she wasn't like River, she had a different essence about her. Amy couldn't quite put her finger on what it was, but it was something in her eyes. They seemed old and tired. No time like the present to get some answers Amy decided as she walked over to where Rose was standing.

"So who are you then?" Amy asked. Rose looked at her startled. It had been so silent in the office as they were waiting that even though Amy's question was spoken quietly, it still sounded jarring and loud. Rose noticed out of the corner of her eyes that the Doctor who was usually twitching and unable to sit still had become as motionless as a statue.

"Like the Doctor said, an old friend. Actually, I'm you or was you. I traveled with the Doctor as his companion back when he was - different," Rose said rather unhelpfully, trying to pick her words wisely.

She looked at Amy and considered her for a moment. Amy was watching her expectantly. Rose knew that she wanted more of an answer than what was given, but Rose was not going to elaborate. However, she felt that she had to warn Amy or at least prepare her in some way for what the end will eventually be. But how do you put into words the possibility of the Doctor leaving or of being left behind.

"Just be careful yeah. There's a price to be paid when travelling with the Doctor," Rose finally said after a few seconds. Rose didn't dare look over at the Doctor and she missed the look of immense guilt that flashed briefly across his face. Amy furrowed her brow, but Rose was spared the question that was forming on Amy's lips as a couple of Secret Service agents returned, each carrying an armful of the requested maps.

Much longer than five minutes later, maps were scattered around the Oval Office cluttering up every possible free space creating an unusual patchwork covering, whether it was the President's desk or the floor. The Doctor was hunched over the President's desk his eyes scanning the maps as quick as lightning looking for a peculiar intersection of names.

"Why Florida?" Canton asked, still trying to piece together how the Doctor came up with that particular state with only a simple phone call from a frightened little girl.

"There's where NASA is. She mentioned a spaceman. NASA's where the spacemen live. Also, there's another lead I'm following," the Doctor muttered, never taking his eyes off the maps as he scoured the map for the possible location of the child.

"A spaceman, like the one we saw at the lake?" Amy asked River quietly.

"Maybe. Probably," River replied.

Rose wandered around the office. She started to feel herself getting swept up in the adventure. She couldn't help the excitement that was brewing in the pit of her stomach. This is what she lived for back home, chasing the unexplainable. And after all the impossibilities of today, here she was standing in the Oval Office, a place where few have entered and they were puzzling about a frightened girl and a spaceman. It was absurd and it was wonderful. As well, it was a marvel they hadn't been shot already. As her eyes wandered over the bookcases and tables lining the circular walls of the office, they fell upon a creature who did not belong in that office. His presence filled the open door frame he was standing in. He had a big bulbous white head and gaunt, empty eyes. There was a growling and clicking noise emanating from deep within this alien. He drew up a long sinuous arm and pointed a pale finger at her. As he pointed, her head started to burn again like it did when she first found herself back in this universe.

"What's wrong with your eyes?"

"What?" Amy had startled Rose causing her to break gaze with the creature. As soon as she looked at Amy her headache vanished along with all memory of what she was looking at. "What do you mean?" Rose caught the Doctor looking at her with worried expression out of the corner of her eye before he turned back to his maps.

But Amy wasn't looking at Rose anymore. She was looking at something that was off to the side.

"I remember," Amy whispered.

"Amy? What do you remember?" Rory asked his face popping into Amy's field of vision.

Rose followed Amy's gaze and saw nothing, just an empty doorway that was framed with Secret Service on either side.

"I don't know. I just-" Amy looked at Rory, hesitating as if she were trying to grasp to a memory that was slipping through her fingers like water.

"Amy, what's wrong?" Rory asked his worry becoming more evident.

"Amy?" River asked gently.

"Are you alright?" the Doctor asked not really paying attention, his focus still on the maps.

"Yeah. No, I'm fine. I'm just feeling a little sick. Excuse me, is there a toilet or something?" Amy said brushing them all off and turning to an agent.

"Sorry, ma'am, while this procedure's ongoing, you must remain within the Oval office," Agent Peterson said brusquely.

"Shut up and take her to the restroom," Canton interjected, rolling his eyes.

"This way, ma'am." Another agent said, leading Amy out of the office.

A short time later that had drawn the five minutes to an even larger number, Canton walked up behind the Doctor looking over his shoulder.

"Your five minutes are up."

"Yeah, and where's my fez?" the Doctor said slightly irritated, trying to buy for time. He was close, he was so close he could feel it in his bones.

A shrill ring cuts through the tension. All eyes turned to the phone as it continued its persistent cry.

"The kid?" Canton asked.

"Should I answer it?" the President wondered.

"Here!" the Doctor shouted in excitement as he pointed to the map. "The only place in the United States that call could be coming from. See? Obvious, when you think about it."

Canton leans in over the map to look at where the Doctor was pointing. A smile of admiration crossed Canton's face. "You, sir, are a genius."

"It's a hobby," the Doctor said clearly pleased with the praise.

"Mr President, answer the phone," the Doctor ordered.

The President slowly picked up the phone and at the same time pressed a button on the recording device that was sitting on his desk, wired through the phone.

"Hello. This is President Nixon."

"It's here! The spaceman's here! It's going to get me! It's going to eat me!" the girl's panicky voice yelled in a desperate plea of help.

"There's no time for a SWAT team. Let's go. Mister President, tell her help's on the way. Canton, on no account follow me into this box and close the door behind you," the Doctor yelled as he ran into the TARDIS, closely followed by Rose, Jack, River, Amy and Rory.

"What the hell are you doing?" Canton yelled as he followed the Doctor into the TARDIS. As soon as the blue wooden doors creaked shut behind Canton, the familiar wheezing of the TARDIS dematerializing into the Time Vortex filled the air. The agents and the President looked stupidly at the empty area that was once occupied by the peculiar blue box.

"Mister President, please help. Please help me!" the girl pleaded.

"Jefferson, it's all right. I'm sending my best people," the President said still trying to puzzle out exactly what had just happened.


	4. Chapter 4

**Author's Note: **Oh wow! Thank you so much for all the follows, reviews and favorites! I'm happy that you are all reading this story and I hope that you will continue reading it. I must admit that my heart smiles every time I receive a review, you have all been so kind. Please let me know what you think about this next installment! _Allons-y! _:)

"So, where are we off to this time?" Amy asked as soon as the Doctor piloted the TARDIS into the Time Vortex.

"Jefferson isn't a girl's name. It's not her name either. Jefferson, Adams, Hamilton. Class?" the Doctor asked while he ran around the control panel, reaching around his companions and pressing buttons and pulling levers in his usual way. Amy gave Rory a bewildered look. She was rubbish at history, let alone the history belonging to another country. By the look on his face, Rory was feeling the same way.

'Surnames of three of America's Founding Fathers," River offered.

"Lovely fellows. Two of them fancied me," the Doctor said giving River a wink. Rose rolled her eyes.

"That was all in your head," she said a little exasperated. While her Doctor had been uncomfortable with the supposed attention given to him by the two said gentlemen, he wouldn't deny that their attraction was real. Rose thought differently of course. She knew what it was to have a man fancy you, the glint that was in his eyes and the way his face softened into that one particular smile - Jack was the perfect example of a man fancying the Doctor, and the particular situation involving the two Founding Fathers was wholly different. They had been in Philadelphia, July, 1776. The Doctor helped the revolutionists defeat a particularly nasty group of aliens looking to control the minds of those brilliant men and then in turn control the fledgling nation and mold it into a war machine to ultimately conquer the world. With defeating the aliens, it paved the way for the Founding Fathers to sign the Declaration of Independence right on schedule, leaving history untouched.

"Oi! Just because they weren't interested in you," the Doctor exclaimed.

Rose gritted her teeth at the Doctor's response. She couldn't believe that she was actually having this argument again, after all these years.

"Please. You were pouting like a two year old who just lost his candy because you couldn't ring the Liberty Bell. They were just trying to cheer you up," Rose found herself repeating the same tired words she had used the first time they disagreed over this issue.

"And why would they want to cheer me up? Because they fancied me!" the Doctor exclaimed as if his point was irrefutably proven. "By the way, I never did get to ring that bell. That's still rather disappointing." The Doctor frowned at the thought before going back to the task at hand. Rose just rolled her eyes again and shook her head. There was no point arguing with a mad man.

In the background Canton hadn't moved from where he froze upon entering the TARDIS, right in front of her doors. He was still trying to process what his eyes were telling him he was seeing.

"Are you okay? Coping?" Rory asked kindly, standing next to Canton while everyone else was around the console.

"It's bigger on the inside," Canton said slowly.

"Yeah, you get used to it," Rory said unsure of how to help the stunned man standing in front of him. He hesitantly put a hand on Canton's shoulder, hoping that it was somewhat comforting and not at all awkward. Back at the control panel the Doctor was still trying to cleverly reveal where they were going by showing how clever he was by coming up with the answer.

"You see, the President asked the child two questions. Where are you and who are you? She was answering where," the Doctor said as he threw a lever and stood still for a second as he looked at his companions one at a time. The TARDIS stopped moving as well, indicating that they had landed. "Now, class, where would you find three big, historical names in a row like that?"

"Where?" Amy asked, getting a little bothered that the Doctor was not getting straight to the answer.

"Here. Come on." The Doctor ran down the ramp to the TARDIS doors, only to pull up short.

"It's er –" Canton spluttered in front of the Doctor, still not able to tear his eyes away from looking all of over control room trying to rectify in his mind the fact that all of this was stuffed into a tiny blue police box.

The Doctor pulled a face; he momentarily had forgotten Canton was onboard and now saw him right in front of the TARDIS doors blocking their way out. He took in Canton's dazed and stunned face and turned to Rory.

"Are you taking care of this?" He didn't wait for a response and he ran out the doors, leaving Rory opening and closing his mouth. River followed closely behind.

"Why is it always my turn?" Rory complained as Amy was walking past him.

"Because you're the newest," Amy said sweetly giving him a kiss on the cheek before going out the doors herself.

"What about them? Why aren't they handling this? They came after me," Rory called after Amy, pointing to Jack and Rose.

"Technically we came before you," Jack said slapping Rory on the shoulder before brushing past them.

"Chin up. It gets easier," Rose said sympathetically to Canton as she followed Jack out the TARDIS doors.

Rose looked around taking in their new surroundings. It never grew old, the magic provided by that wonderful, impossible blue box of transporting them to different places in the matter of minutes, even if they were still on Earth. The TARDIS had landed in the corner of a dingy, dusty abandoned office. A yellow light filtered through grungy, molded yellow broken plastic blinds that were missing a few slats here and there, with other slats bent in the middle making the windows look like they were leering at the Doctor and his companions with a broken tooth smile. Rose dragged her fingers across the surface of a desk, leaving behind a trail in the absence of the thick layer of dust that covered everything else. There were chairs scattered everywhere throughout the office, some of them turned on their sides, other stacked haphazardly on each other. The Doctor was occupying one of those chairs, sitting in front of a dusty old desk while waving a small American flag in his hand.

"Where are we?" Amy asked as the beam of light from her flashlight scanned the room.

"About five miles from Cape Kennedy Space Centre. It's 1969, the year of the moon. Interesting, don't you think?" the Doctor replied, setting the flag back down on the desk. Rose moved closer to one of the windows and holding down some of the slats, looked outside.

"Clever girl," she murmured.

"But why would a little girl be here?" Amy wrinkled her nose at the disrepair of the abandoned building around them.

"I don't know. Lost me a bit." The Doctor waved his hands and stood up quickly. "The President asked the girl where she was, and she did what any lost little girl would do. She looked out of the window." He pulled down some of the slats to show Amy and River exactly what he had already deduced. Outside the street lamps bathed three green street signs standing on the corner of where the warehouse was located in a soft orange glow. In reflective white letters on those green street signs were the names of Jefferson, Hamilton and Adams.

"Streets. Of course, street names." Amy said clearly impressed.

"The only place in Florida, probably all of America, with those three street names on the same junction," the Doctor said, quite pleased with how clever he was. "And Rose Tyler, you've got that face on again."

"What face?"

"The he's hot when he's clever face," the Doctor said a little smugly.

"You're full of it," Rose chided rolling her eyes, but unable to keep a small smile tugging at her lips and a blush off of her face.

"I am never full of it, as you say. I only state facts as I see them," the Doctor said in mock seriousness.

"Oh, shut up."

"Not a chance." The Doctor waved his hands with a satisfied grin on his face. Rose shook her head as she headed towards the office door. Jack had been leaning against the door frame and he caught her eye with a knowing smirk on his face and bent over close to Rose and whispered for only her to hear as she was passing by.

"Look who's flirting now."

"Shut up," Rose scowled slapping Jack's arm with the back of her hand and left the office.

The TARDIS doors squeaked as they opened once more. A baffled Canton stepped out of the ship and stared around the office in disbelief and wonder. Rory stepped out behind him.

"We've moved. How, how can we have moved?" Canton asked in bewilderment.

"You haven't even got to space travel yet?" the Doctor asked with raised eyebrows as he took in Canton.

"I was going to cover it with time travel," Rory responded, a little irritated with the Doctor.

'Time travel," Canton mumbled as he looked between Rory and the Doctor.

"Brave heart, Canton. Come on," the Doctor said encouragingly and walked through the office door, followed quickly by River and Amy. Canton was silent for a few more seconds as he processed everything. He opened his mouth and raised his hand, with a thought working its way out.

"So we're in a box that's bigger on the inside, and it travels through time and space."

"Yeah, basically," Rory nodded and headed towards the office door.

"How long have Scotland Yard had this?" Canton asked following Rory out of the office.

* * *

Rose left the office and moved into the large, cavernous space the office was connected to. The beam of white light from her flashlight fell on abandoned wooden crates and boxes stacked all helter-skelter. Puddles covered the cement floor giving the building a dank, moldy atmosphere. Sounds of water dripping echoed throughout the building as Rose's feet dragged across the damp floor. To the left were rickety stairs made of grated metal leading up to a loft area above. Shafts of light created by the street lamps outside broke their way through small windows lining the walls up along the ceiling, illuminating storage shelves holding various items such as coils of wires and cables, cartons and cans of unknown substances, and cardboard boxes that were labeled and sealed. Behind Rose, more lights joined her own as the others left the office.

"It's a warehouse of some kind. Disused," River's voice echoed behind Rose.

"You realize this is almost certainly a trap, of course?" the Doctor asked scanning the area with his eyes, as their multiple flashlights lit up the long forgotten, discarded objects.

"I noticed the phone, yes," River replied.

"What about it?" Amy asked her curiosity laced with a hint of worry.

"It was cut off. So how did the child phone from here?" River explained.

"Okay, but why would anyone want to trap us?" Amy furrowed her brows in confusion.

"Let's see if anyone tries to kill us and work backwards," the Doctor stated.

"Now, why would a little girl be here?" Jack voiced the question that was currently residing in everyone's mind.

"I don't know. Let's find her and ask her," the Doctor replied.

* * *

Rose continued to wend her way deeper into the warehouse, leaving behind the conversations between the Doctor and the others. While she could still hear the reverberations of their voices, she could not make out the words. There was something wrong here and it was more than just the disconnected phone that River mentioned. The atmosphere seemed to sizzle with wrongness. She didn't know why she was able to sense it but somewhere deep inside the gut of her stomach, she felt it. It was like looking at a picture of someone she knew well, but the facial features were off somewhat. The eyes were set slightly wider apart with the irises not quite the color they should be, the nose a little narrower and longer, and the corners of the mouth not turning up like they should. Passing a couple more storage shelves and open machinery with all the electrical wiring spilling out like guts from a deep open wound, she saw it: an operating table of sorts being lit up by its own light source from above. The table was covered in a film of dirt and sludge and it was slanted and had a big metal tub at the bottom as if to siphon off anything that were to drip down the table. Hanging over the table from the light fixture like thick, dangling vines were cables covered in slime and tendrils of some thin spongy stringy substance on the ends. The light fixture itself was a mammoth circular tube that was as large as the table and the base it sat on, covered in a tangled web of wires weaving in and out of the fixture.

Rose circled the table flashing her light at the objects that surrounded it. There were some filing cabinets and iron safes as well as more open wooden crates. Additionally, there was more machinery that was hooked up to the operating table and light fixture at various points using the same thick vine like cables. The machinery was still turned on and was blinking away with red and orange lights, whirring softly with intermittent clicks and beeps. The machines had various buttons and needles that would monitor who knows what. Next to the machines, there were shelves with vials of some type of clear liquid and cabinets lined with surgical tools. It was starting to make her stomach curl at the thought of what this little girl might have been subjected to.

Her focus quickly returned to the table in the center of the machinery. She pulled out a sonic screwdriver that she always carries in her pocket. The Doctor, her husband, had built it for her shortly after both of them started traveling the stars again in the TARDIS they grew from the bit of coral Donna gave them back on that awful day on Bad Wolf Bay. Since Rose had always been independent and wandered off far too much, much to the chagrin of her husband, he decided that she should at least have a tool to help her out in tight spots. It was thin and silver looking, like an oversized pen and was fashioned to look just like the Doctor's, except that instead of emitting a blue light on the end, it would glow pink when she used it. The Doctor had huffed and groaned at her request to make the light that specific color, but through all his protests his eyes couldn't help but twinkle in amusement over her squeals of delight when she saw the end product. Holding her now well used sonic in hand, Rose started to scan the table and didn't notice when the Doctor came in the same area she was in.

"That's odd. Different bits belonging to different species," she muttered to herself as she held the sonic up to her face and looked at the results.

"Since when does Rose Tyler know how to distinguish alien tech by species? And why do you have a sonic screwdriver?" the Doctor asked being a bit more blunt than intended because of his shock.

"Oi, I've learned a thing or two since the last time you saw me and a sonic screwdriver happens to be an invaluable tool, as you well know." she replied knowing that is not the answer he wanted, but not willing to divulge anything further.

"What would they want with a child? And what were they doing to her? Maybe the alien conspiracy theorists of the age weren't far off about the probing and surgeries," Rose finally said, though she hoped what she said was as far from the truth as one end of the universe was from the other.

"Ew, that's disgusting and not true at all! Who would want to probe a human?" the Doctor exclaimed in revulsion.

"That still doesn't explain why apparently a bunch of different races would want a human child. Or if it is just one race, what alien would scavenge for all of this tech? Look at this Doctor," Rose said as she reached for a particularly nasty looking surgical instrument. She remembered seeing it before in the parallel universe on one of her many adventures with her husband Doctor. "This comes from the height of the Thyndrax Empire, right? This is advanced tech." The Doctor pursed his lips as his eyes scanned their surroundings. Suddenly his eyes lit up like a kid finding presents Christmas morning.

"Which is odd, because look at this!" the Doctor exclaimed giddily, running over to a crate of NASA space suits.

"It's earth tech. It's contemporary," River said joining them. Rose pursed her lips, unable to keep the annoyance off her face.

"It's very contemporary. Cutting edge. This is from the space program," the Doctor said slowly as he was trying to fit the puzzle pieces together on their current mystery.

"Stolen?" River asked looking over at the Doctor for affirmation.

"What, by aliens?" Amy asked joining them as she looked in the crates.

"Apparently," The Doctor shrugged.

"But why? I mean, if you can make it all the way to Earth, why steal technology that can barely make it to the moon?" Amy asked in confusion.

"Maybe because it's cooler? Look how cool this stuff is!" the Doctor exclaimed giddily, snatching one of the space helmets from the crate and promptly jamming it on his head. When he raised the reflective golden visor, he had a goofy grin plastered on his face and held his arms out wide with raised eyebrows waiting for the agreements to come pouring in.

"Cool aliens?" Amy asked unconvinced. The Doctor frowned a little.

"Well, what would you call me?" he asked as he pulled the helmet off his head.

"An alien," Amy shrugged her shoulders with a smirk on her face.

"Oi!" the Doctor cried in offense, whipping around to look at Amy with an appalled look on his face, his non-existent eyebrows furrowed and his jaw open.

Rose smiled at Amy's teasing jab at the Doctor before she stepped silently away. She had had enough with River Song at the moment and there was something else that had caught her eye. While the floor was strewn with a jumble of cables connecting the machinery to the operating table, there was a far bigger cable leading away from the table and machinery. She kept her light on the cable as she started to follow it away from the group. Jack saw what she was looking at and joined her side. As they left Rory and Canton caught up with the Doctor, River, and Amy.

"I, er, I think he's okay now," Rory announced as he and Canton joined the group, although there wasn't any confidence in the inflexion of his voice.

The Doctor looked over at them. "Ah! Back with us, Canton."

"I like your wheels," Canton replied as his mind was catching up to the weird that he was seeing.

"That's my boy. So, come on. Little girl. Let's find her," the Doctor said enthusiastically. He moved away from the operating table and machinery. Rory and Canton followed him, shining their lights on all the machinery as they passed it.

* * *

"How are you holding up, Rose?" Jack asked as soon as they were out of earshot.

Rose ripped her eyes from the cable they were following and looked over and saw Jack's eyes full of concern. She was happy that after all that had happened so far, it was Jack that she ran into first. She didn't know how she would be able to handle everything that was being thrown her way without him there to be a steady rock to lean against.

"Better, I suppose," she said simply with a shrug before turning her attention back to the cable.

"Still thinking of leaving?"

"I don't know. I can't watch him die again," Rose said truthfully.

The voice of the Doctor carried over to them as he was exclaiming about something. While Rose didn't quite catch all that was said, there was one thing that was discernible. The name of River Song. Rose bristled upon hearing it.

"Besides, he has plenty of people fawning over him," Rose said resentfully. Jack narrowed his eyes noticing the change in her posture and tone of voice. He stopped walking.

"You're jealous," Jack called out to her, a grin creeping across his face.

"What are you on about?" Rose stopped and turned to look back at him, shock and incredulity scrawled across her face.

"You're jealous of River," Jack accused relishing in getting under Rose's skin.

"I am not jealous! What's there to be jealous of? Her big curly hair? Or the fact that she is just about as big of a flirt as you are?" Rose said throwing a hand in the air.

"Just now, you bristled like a porcupine when we heard her name. If there is one thing I know, it's jealousy. There's nothing wrong with the little green monster. In fact, I'm a little jealous myself."

"Of who? The Doctor or River?" Rose said, turning back to the cable and continuing farther into the warehouse.

"Both," Jack said with a laugh. "That doesn't change the fact that you are jealous as well."

"Stop it, I'm not jealous! You know she has a gun and the Doctor hates guns. It would never work out between them. And that's not including that she is about twice his age, physically speaking," she stopped talking as it dawned on her. She cringed and covered her eyes with a hand. "Oh god, I am jealous."

Jack chuckled, "Told you."

"Shut up," Rose scowled. But the scowl quickly melted from her face as the light from her flashlight landed on a manhole covering that was partially open, allowing the thick cable to disappear in the hole below. Rose quickly crouched next to it and started to push at the heavy metal covering.

"Give me a hand with this," Rose grunted as she continued to push.

With many grunts and straining of arm muscles with both of them pushing and lifting the manhole covering, they eventually made quick work of moving it away from the cable, revealing a dank hole.

"Wonder what's down there?" Rose mused as she shined her light down the dark hole. The light revealed a wet cement floor surrounded by brick walls. It didn't look too deep, about twenty feet if she had to guess. Running down the side of the hole was a ladder that still looked sturdy with only a couple of spots of rust showing near some of the soldered ends. She moved over the head of the ladder.

"I don't think it's a good idea to be going down there, Rosie."

"Don't get your knickers in a twist, I'm just going to take a quick peek." Rose flashed Jack a big grin and lowered herself on the ladder.

* * *

Amy hung back by the operating table as the Doctor, Rory and Canton branched out looking for any signs of where the little girl might be. She fingered one of the hanging cables. Today has been an emotional roller coaster so far to say the least. She had to stand by while she witnessed her best friend get murdered right in front of her eyes, only to be confronted by a younger living version of said person because he was a daft time travelling alien. She felt like she was treading water, just barely staying afloat in a flood of roiling events that keep making it harder for her to keep her head. And since arriving in the warehouse there had been one thing on her mind that has been making it possible for her to keep her head above water.

"River," Amy began quietly.

"I know what you're thinking," River quietly cut her off in a hushed voice as she moved closer to Amy.

"No, you don't."

"You're thinking if we can find the spaceman in 1969 and neutralize it, then it won't be around in 2011 to kill the Doctor."

"Okay, lucky guess," Amy admitted a little disgruntled.

"It's only because I was thinking it too," River confessed.

"So let's do it," Amy responded quickly. The Doctor was her best friend, aside from Rory, and she has found herself with the perfect opportunity to divert the whole thing from happening. And if River was thinking about it too, it shouldn't be too difficult. River eyed Amy with sympathy and shook her head.

"It doesn't work like that. We came here because of what we saw in the future. If we try and prevent the future from happening, we create a paradox."

"Time can be rewritten," Amy pushed. Isn't that what the Doctor was always saying? All the alien invasions on Earth seem to prove it, as well, the many times the Doctor had taken them to a planet only to be confused as to why events weren't happening as they should be.

"Not all of it," River shook her head sadly.

"Says who?" Amy challenged. River looked over to where the Doctor was talking to Rory and Canton, his arms flapping about. She looked back at Amy.

"Who do you think?"

"We can still save him," Amy stubbornly said, unwilling to accept defeat. The Doctor walked back over to them, his eyes looking around their surroundings as if he suddenly realized he lost something and he was desperately searching for where it was.

The Doctor turned around on the spot with a perplexed frown on his face. "Where's Jack and Rose?"

* * *

Rose jumped the last rungs of the ladder and landed on wet cement with a low thud and a small splash which reverberated through a dark tunnel. She turned on her flashlight and turned around. There was a door sized hole that had been smashed into the brick wall in front of her and running through it and along the wall on the other side was the thick cable she had been following. There was a steady dripping of water coming from several different directions in front of her. Rose shown her light through the hole as she stepped through it and followed the cable with her eyes as it was strung along the walls went as far as the light illuminated. The walls that it was resting on were made of uneven stone, like they were created by being hacked away at in a haphazardly motion. There was a film of a slimy substance that covered their surface, like a thin mucus membrane. With the hacked stone and slime on the walls, it gave the tunnel a cave-like feeling. She briefly lit up the ground in front of her and discovered that it was littered with little stones and bits of metal. Probably left over from whoever built this whole thing, she mused to herself. She was about to start to pick her way through the tunnel when Jack brought her up short.

"Okay down there?" Jack called down to her.

"Yeah. It's an empty tunnel. I'm going to see if I can see if it leads anywhere. I'll only be a mo," Rose yelled over her shoulder.

She heard Jack grumble something as she started to make her way through the tunnel. She hadn't gone thirty feet when her light fell on a hidden alcove. What she saw made her stumble back in surprise. She remembered seeing this creature before, but now there was a whole army of them, fifty at least. Her heart started to speed up as the one in front mimicked what the last did and raised an arm and pointed at her. Just like that time, her head exploded with fire. Her body hunched over in pain and she had to grasp the wall in order to keep her balance. But try as she could, she was not able to break the eye contact.

"What are you doing to me?" Rose asked haltingly through the pain that was threatening to burn her mind head.

"Run. Run like you always do, and keep running," a wheezing, raspy voice ordered. Rose gasped as her eyes started to prickle with tears as the burning fire intensified when the creature spoke.

"How did you –" Rose grimaced in pain. "What do you mean?"

"We know exactly who you are, Rose Tyler. You're the Bad Wolf. The lost companion. You belong and don't belong at the same time."

Rose could only stare in disbelief. Fear was starting to grip her around the heart with its squeezing icy tendrils. There was only one other person she knew besides herself that knew about Bad Wolf. The fact that these creatures named her drained her a bit of the bravery she was feeling earlier.

"If you stay you will fail and you will die," the creature continued.

Through the fog of the fire burning in her head, a memory floated to the forefront of her mind. "I remember you from the Oval Office. How did I forget you? That's it, isn't it? We forget." Rose said as she crouched, her fingers searching along the floor for anything she might use, never losing eye contact with the creature in front of her. Her fingers bumped against something until finally they curled around a rock. She slowly stood up and with the hand holding the rock, she started to scratch the wall through the sludge the best she could without looking.

"That will not help you, Child of Time," the creature rasped, as the others surrounding him started to click and groan more.

"Yeah, we'll see about that," Rose muttered determinedly under her breath, pushing away the pain in her head the best she could. The creatures may have had knowledge of her and who she had been – which was extremely unsettling – but she had learned something about them herself. While there was still much more to learn, they were completely a mystery now. And with that knowledge, action can eventually follow. And for now, that was all she needed. She willed herself to look away and quickly turned around and with her feet slapping against the puddle ridden floor, she ran quickly back to the ladder. By the time she reached the ladder, she had quite forgotten what it was she was running from. The Doctor's head popped into view besides Jack.

"Are you alright down there? It sounded like you were running." The Doctor had a frown on his face. Rose looked up at them feeling just as confused.

"I – I thought," she hesitated, pointing a thumb over her shoulder. She twisted and looked behind her back into the empty tunnel and then shook her head. It had felt like she was running away from something. "I don't remember. Er, give me five minutes. I want to take another look around."

"Stupidly dangerous!" the Doctor admonished. River patted the Doctor on the shoulder.

"Don't worry sweetie. I'll go with her," she said gently. She gave him a wink and lowered herself onto the ladder and quickly climbed down.

The Doctor turned to Jack, "Stay here and make sure nothing happens to those two."

* * *

Rose groaned inwardly and clenched her jaw in irritation as she heard River's feet slap on the wet cement as she jumped off the ladder. She heard the rustle of fabric and imagined River brushing something off of her clothes. There was a flash of light and she heard River's footsteps as the other woman joined her.

"You can go back to the Doctor, I don't need you down here babysitting me. I'm quite capable of handling this on my own," Rose said tersely, not bothering to turn around and look at River.

"Not a chance. I prefer being down here and exploring," River said, brushing off Rose's cool tone of voice. She pulled out the same bio-scanner that she used to check the Doctor's vital signs from earlier on the beach. It blinked into life as she scanned their surroundings. "No signs of life down here."

Rose just rolled her eyes while she bit her tongue and she started to walk down the tunnel. River easily stepped into stride next to her.

"This is interesting. These tunnels are old. Really old. How can they be really old and nobody notice them?" River mused as she held her scanner in front of her double checking the readings it was giving her. It beeped and hummed as she pressed more buttons.

"Someone must have noticed them," Rose said as her light shown on the wall. River flashed her light over to where Rose was looking. Before them were the words BAD WOLF scratched unevenly into the sludge and stone. Rose couldn't quell the fear that was starting to grow in the pit of her stomach. In her experience, those words never meant anything good. While she didn't remember much of what happened on Satellite 5 from the time the Doctor sent her home to right before he regenerated on her, she did remember those words and that they were somehow significant, like a warning. The Doctor didn't tell her much about what happened; only that she took in the entire time vortex into her head which allowed her to save his life. He remained vague on the details of how she actually accomplished it only telling her that she became an entity known as Bad Wolf. Even her husband didn't divulge much more information, though she had pestered him about it more than once during their marriage.

"What's a good mysterious tunnel without a little intrigue," River said finally as she shone her light down the never ending tunnel.

"You know what those words mean?" Rose asked surprised. She thought it was something only she and the Doctor knew.

River gave Rose a small smile. "The Doctor told me about their significance."

Rose could only nod in response. She didn't know what to say or how she felt about River knowing things about her. While it used to be a fear of Rose's, that the Doctor would forget all about her and never mention her to anyone else, like he did with Sarah Jane, she had to admit that it made her uncomfortable that the Doctor would talk about her to River. It made her feel like she was being compared to the other woman and she didn't like how the odds stacked up.

"You don't like me," River said after a moment, breaking into her thoughts. It was a statement not a question.

Rose pursed her lips. While she really wanted to answer in the affirmative, she knew that would be too rude. And there was no way she was going to disagree with River with some fake sentiment or excuse. So she kept her mouth tightly shut.

"It's okay. I wouldn't like me either if I were you," River continued undeterred.

"What's that supposed to mean then?" Rose getting a little irritated over River's sympathy.

"Well, you finally make it back to the man you love only to find him with another woman."

Rose started to chew on her tongue before replying.

"Okay, fine. I don't like you." Rose grudgingly admitted.

"I'm not asking that we become friends, but we do need to work together in order to protect that wonderfully irritating man."

"And how do you propose we do that? His death isn't anything we can prevent," Rose said a bit harshly. In her mind she remembered when she first knew the Doctor and how he took her to witness her dad's death. She felt her cheeks turn warm as she remembered how foolish she was running out and saving her dad's life. It had resulted in a paradox causing some fierce, dark winged creatures called Reapers to appear and consume all life until her father killed himself and thus returning history back to how it should be. She knew that if there was that big of a ramification caused by just her trying to save insignificant Pete Tyler, she couldn't even possibly begin to fathom what would happen if they were to somehow upset the Doctor's death in the same way. Even if it was something she desperately wished to do.

However before either of them could say anything more, their lights landed on an inconspicuous metal door tucked away in a small alcove. It was roughly the same dingy stone grey color of the walls and blended in very well.

"It's a maintenance hatch," Rose exclaimed. River walked over to it and tried the handle.

"It's locked. Oh, why do people always lock things?" River muttered to herself.

"Wonder what's through there?" Rose said as she joined River at the door.

"I've no idea," River said shaking her head.

Probably something bad," Rose said unable to help the grin that was forming on her face. While she was still highly annoyed with River's presence, this was the type of thing she lived for – the adventure that came with all things dangerous.

"Almost definitely. How's a girl supposed to resist?" River asked returning Rose's smile with one of her own.

"Let's open it and find out." Rose pulled out her sonic to open the lock, but River knelt down in front of the door and shook her head.

"You can put that away, I have my own device." She pulled out two small instruments that were roughly the same size as a pen and she pointed it at the circular lock. They looked to be like a high tech version of lock pickers.

"What's your story then? How did you meet the Doctor?" Rose asked as River was working on the lock.

"When I first met the Doctor, a long, long time ago, he knew all about me. Think about that. An impressionable young girl and, suddenly this man just drops out of the sky and he's clever and mad and wonderful, and knows every last thing about her. Imagine what that does to a girl.

"Yeah, he does that sometimes." No matter how much she didn't want to be, Rose couldn't help but feel pity for River.

"The trouble is, it's all back to front. My past is his future. We're travelling in opposite directions. Every time we meet, I know him more, he knows me less. I live for the days when I see him, but I know that every time I do, he'll be one step further away. And the day is coming when I'll look into that man's eyes, my Doctor, and he won't have the faintest idea who I am. And I think it's going to kill me."

The lock clicked open as it hummed to life, lighting up with orange lights. It was accompanied with a loud noise as the bolt retracted back into the door.

"Hang on, you said that your past is his future. Is that how you knew who Jack and I were? You've already met us before," Rose asked before River opened the door.

"I met Jack as a young woman, the same day I first met the Doctor properly, in fact."

"And me?" Rose asked quietly, afraid of the answer.

"You weren't there. I didn't meet you until much later." River didn't meet Roses eyes. She turned her focus back to the opened hatch and slipped through the door. Rose furrowed her brow before following River through the door. There was something River wasn't telling her.

On the other side of the hatch was a large room. A heavy layer of fog blanketed the floor in front of the door. A heavy, deep hum reverberated throughout the room. In the center was a pillar made of what looked like a few large, tall UV lights, standing in a circle. Surrounding the lighted pillar were four coffin shaped control panel which central feature was a spherical palm control device. Further away from the central pillar were five support beams travelling from the floor and curving high overhead before they converged into the central pillar.

"What is this place?" Rose asked as she edged her way inside. River was further in and as soon as she stepped onto the central floor and large beep rang through the air.

"That's an alarm. Check if anything's coming," River said. Rose nodded headed back through the door. As soon as she stepped over the threshold, she could feel the prickle of fear raise the hair on her body. She swung her flashlight out across the tunnel and she stumbled back as the beam of light fell on the same tall, gaunt creatures she had encountered earlier. Her head erupted in the now unfortunately familiar burning headache. The creatures started to close in on her, as they clicked and wheezed from the back of their throats.

"These tunnels, they're not just here, they're everywhere. They're running under the surface of the entire planet. They've been here for centuries," River said a little louder so Rose could hear. She furrowed her brow when she didn't receive a response. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a series of bright flashing lights that seemed to be coming from outside the door they used to enter the room. The flashing lights reminded River of an electrical storm, the way the bright blue-white flash would light up erratically. The air started to smell of burnt atmosphere and every time there was a flash it was accompanied by a soft sizzling sound.

"Rose?" River called out as she slowly made her way to the door. She unholstered her gun as she got closer to the door and she could start to make out shadows of figures being cast by the light along the tunnel walls. She quickened her step and the sight that greeted her outside the door made her heart stop. Rose was standing erect and was surrounded by a halo of gold. Beyond her, River saw the mouthless gaunt aliens for the first time and they were focused on Rose. Their hands were crackling with electricity and it was from them the flashing light was being made.

"Rose!" River shouted in a desperate attempt to get her attention as she raised her gun.

* * *

**Let me know what you think! :)**


End file.
